THE LIFE 



OF 



FATHER THOMAS COPLEY 



A FOUNDER OF MARYLAND 



3/3^" 



BY MRS KATHERINE C. DORSEY 



Of Georgetown, D C 



1885. ^ 



lire 



LIFE OF FATHER THOMAS COPLEY. 

a founder of maryland. 

Chapter i. 

Tlie Copley Family. 

Among the pious and devoted Jesuits, who, at the com- 
mand of the Father General, two hundred and fifty years 
ago, turned their faces westward, and accompanied or fol- 
lowed the Catholic pilgrims to that "new found land of 
Jesus," Maryland, one of the most energetic and efficient 
was Father Thomas Copley. Among the English gentle- 
men who gathered around the council table of Governor 
Calvert none ranked higher in birth and fortune than Thom- 
as Copley, Esquire. Yet of him little is known ; he is not 
even mentioned by Oliver, and Foley, in his "Records of the 
English Province," suggests that Copley was an alias of 
White or Altham. In histories of Maryland his name only 
occurs as one of the early missionaries. One writer, Street- 
er, somewhat puzzled by the distinction invariably accorded 
to him by the Annapolis Records, naively inquires "how a 
Jesuit could be an esquire," though even he would have ac- 
knowledged that the kinsman of Elizabeth of England had 



2 Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

a right to that title, in spite of his having reh'nquished a high 
position for the priest's robe, and exchanged an ancient pa- 
trimony in England for plantations in the new colony which 
are still held by his successors. Here he faithfully sowed 
that others might reap, turning not back for the years that 
were given him ; and when his work was done, here he lay 
down to rest. 

In the attempt to gain some knowledge of the fortunes of 
this negle6led founder, we have learned something of the 
lives of his father and grandfather ; men whose fate was so 
strangely shaped by intense loyalty to that faith for which 
he sought an asylum, that they are well worthy to be re- 
membered, even if their history had not thrown new and 
unexpected light on that of Maryland. 

When, in 1558, Elizabeth ascended the throne of Eng- 
land, few untitled families ranked higher, or possessed great- 
er wealth, than that of which Thomas Copley of Gatton, 
Leigh Grange, Raughley, CoUey, Manor of the Maze in 
Southwark, and Mersham Park, was head. Through one 
ancestress he claimed the barony of Welles, through another 
that of Hoo, and was related through them to the Queen her- 
self Both Burleigh and Walsingham, her trusted counsel- 
ors, were his kinsmen ; so that it seemed no one had a fairer 
outlook, could he only have gotten rid of his troublesome 
conscience and his Catholic mother. She was Elizabeth 
Shelley, daughter of Sir William Shelley of Michelgrove, 
Sussex, Judge of the Common Pleas; one who stood high 
enough in the favor of Henry VIH to be sent by him to 
Esher, in order to wring from Wolsey, then about to fall, 
a grant of York House, known afterwards as Whitehall. 
Wolsey demurred, saying he had no power to alienate the 
possessions of the church, and that "the judges should put 
no more in the king's head than that law which may stand 
with conscience." Judge Shelley replied, "that having re- 
gard to the king's great power it may better stand with con- 
science, who is sufficient to recompense the church of York 
with double the value," Knowing well the chara61:er of his 
Majesty, Wolsey must have felt how small was the chance 



A Pounder of Maryland. 3 

that the see of York would again receive this bread, cast 
into the fathomless waters of royal rapacity. However, the 
King got Whitehall — and granted to Sir William the Manor 
of Gatton in Surrey, as a pour boire after his journey. This 
place, celebrated in reform days for its rotten borough, is 
within eight miles of London ; and had been held in early 
times by Sir Robert de Gatton, for the extraordinary service 
of marshal of twelve maidens who waited in the royal kitch- 
en. Its lords had gone crusading and otherwise extinguished 
themselves, and it had fallen to the crown, to be regranted 
in this wise. Sir William Shelley settled it on his daughter 
at her marriage with Sir Roger Copley ; as well as Leigh, a 
moated grange, one of the few in England that still retain 
their ancient chara6ler. Willing as Sir William Shelley 
showed himself to drag down the too powerful Wolsey, he 
seems to have shrunk back as the evil qualities of Henry 
developed themselves, and "in Lord Cromwell's time passed 
storms and with great loss" as we learn from a letter of his 
son. Sir Richard, preserved in the Harleian Library. His 
whole family seem to have clung with unshaken fidelity to 
the Church ; his eldest son. Sir William of Michelgrove, for 
presenting a respectful petition of his co-religionists to Eliza- 
beth, was thrown into the Tower and died there; Sir Rich- 
ard, another son, was the last Turcopelier of St. John of 
Jerusalem. This great office was equivalent to that of gene- 
ral of cavalry, turcoples being the light horse in the holy wars, 
and was always borne by English knights, the conventual 
bailiff of that language alone bearing the title, and the Grand 
Master only being above him. Sir Richard was a favorite of 
Cardinal Pole and the trusted friend of the noble La Valette, 
whose battles he shared, and so high was his chara6ler, that 
even Elizabeth, though she deprived him of his estates and 
drove him into exile, employed him in 1581 in negotiations 
with France ; which he condu6led so successfully, that he 
had leave to return, though it does not appear that he ever 
did so. Sir Richard on this occasion, caused a medal to be 
struck, an engraving of which is given in the Gentleman's 
Magazine for 1785. On one side is his own noble face, on 



4 Life of Fatlier Thomas Copley. 

the reverse a griffin, his crest, with the motto, "Patriae sum 
excubitor opum." 

Holding so high a place in a great order, the Lord Prior 
seems to have exercised a controlling influence in his family, 
several other members of which joined it during his time ; 
and we have dwelt on his career thus long, because it seems 
to have been an important fa6lor in determining that of the 
Shelleys, Copleys, Gages, and Southwells, all of whom were 
conne6led with him. Lady Copley, besides her only son 
Sir Thomas, had three daughters ; one of whom, Bridget, 
married to Richard Southwell of St. Faith's in Norfolk, is 
said to have been a very learned lady, and Latin instru6lress 
to the cruel Queen, who afterwards condemned to torture 
and to death her son, Robert Southwell, S. J. poet, priest 
and martyr. 

Chapter ii. 

Persecution and Exile. 

(/ Thomas Copley was a Protestant in the reign of Mary, 

perhaps influenced by his relationship to Elizabeth. In 
March, 1558, sitting then doubtless for his borough of Gat- 
ton, he incurred the displeasure of the House of Commons 
for "irreverent words against Queen Mary,"^'^ and was com- 
mitted to the sergeant- at-arms, in whose custody he still 
was when the house adjourned soon after. He then went 
abroad, and was in France when Mary died; for the Com- 
missioners she had sent to treat for the recovery of Calais, 
dispatched him to Elizabeth with letters of congratulation, 
for which she told him "she owed him a good turn." We 
shall see hereafter how she kept her word. Standing thus 
well with her majesty, and holding high hopes for the future, 
Thomas Copley, not yet twenty-three years old, bestirred 
himself about his marriage. He seems at first to have turned 
his eyes towards a daughter of Howard of Effingham, but 
ultimately chose Catherine, one of the daughters and co- 

(^) Journals of the House, 7 & 8 of March, 1558. 



A Founder _ of Maryland. 5 

heiresses of Sir John Lutterel of Dunster, Somersetshire, 
"who was handsomer," says her granddaughter in the Chron- 
icle of St. Monica. In the Loosely MSS.<^^^ there is a letter 
from the bridegroom, asking from the Master of the Re- 
vels the loan "of masques," etc., for the wedding, which he 
says "is like to take place in an ill houre" for him, whence 
it would seem he already presaged evil. Indeed, it is said 
that the Lord Chamberlain, Howard, never forgave the slight 
his daughter had received, nor ceased to use his influence 
with Elizabeth, to whom he was related, until he had driven 
Copley into exile. However, in 1560, the Queen still smiled 
on him, for in that year she became godmother to his eldest 
son, to whom she gave her father's name, Henry. Copley, 
in a letter written long afterwards, says that at this period 
he "indulged in costly building, chargeable music, and such 
vanities as my age delighted in :" no doubt ruffling it with 
the best, and displaying the splendor then expe6led from a 
gentleman of ample estate, who quartered the arms of Hoo, 
Welles, Waterton, Shelley, Lutterel, and a dozen more.^^^ 
No further record is found until 1568, when he obtained 
Mersham Park, an estate of about twelve hundred acres in 
Surrey, which had belonged to the Priory of Christchurch, 
Canterbury, and then to that greedy spoiler of church lands. 
Sir Robert Southwell, who this year had leave to alienate it 
to Thomas Copley — now a Catholic. He at once settled it 
on his wife and children. 

It is probable that the change in his religious opinions 
had taken place some time before this period. St. Monica's 
Chronicle says it was brought about by reading controver- 
sial works ; perhaps the belief was latent in him and became 
apparent as the policy of the government toward those of the 
old faith displayed itself; he being tolerant to a degree singu- 
larly remarkable for those days. He was nevertheless will- 
ing to endure all things rather than renounce or conceal the 
least of those things he believed essential. Perhaps the loss 
of his mother, who died in 1560, may have drawn him to- 

W Edited by Kempe, London, 1830. 
c^) Mailings Hist, of Surrey, England. 



6 Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

wards the religion of her family. That the change must 
have been known soon after this event is certain : — for he 
speaks of "six years of imprisonment patiently borne," — 
and "of troubles with the Lord Chamberlain and broils with 
the Archbishop of Canterbury about religion" — in a letter 
the date of which fixes the fa61; as about that time. 

An hour dark for him and for many others was at hand ; 
in 1569, the discontent*; arising from the imprisonment of 
Mary Stuart, and other causes, broke into a storm ; the 
North was in a flame, the great Earls arose ; — and for the 
last time, the "half moon" of Percy, the "dun bull" of Neville 
gathered together men in battle array. But the power of 
the feudal lords was gone, and the rebellion was suppressed, 
but not before the county of Durham was almost tui-ned 
into a desert; whilst the roads leading to Newcastle were 
dotted with gibbets on which hung by twos and threes the 
bodies of gentlemen who had taken part in it. It does not 
appear that Copley had the least hand in this revolt; nor 
does he seem ever to have favored the claims of Mary Stu- 
art, or to have been accused of doing so. The outbreak 
may have intensified the suspicion with which all recusants 
were regarded, and there may have been an intention of re- 
committing him to prison, of which he had a hint before he 
took that step which he never was to retrace. 

We have been unable to find the exa6l date of his depar- 
ture from England, but we learn from himself, that having 
written to the Queen and her council his reasons for not 
waiting for their license to dwell abroad, he escaped be- 
yond seas. 

In 1570 information is given to Burleigh that "Copley 
and Shelley are at Louvain." — There is a curious "accompte" 
published in Colle6lanea Topographica, Vol. 8th, kept by 
Donald Sharpies, an agent of Mrs. Copley for some property 
settled on her, belonging to the Maze in Southwark — item- 
izing various articles bought : 

"On nth Nov. 1569, To Robert Bowers blacksmythe 
and gonne maker, for a gonne called a fyer-locke piece for 
Mr. Copley, 40s." whilst the next entry is for "sealing threde 



A Founder of Maryland. 7 

and a quier of Venis paper for my mistress." Perhaps at 
that time Copley was preparing for his departure, and his 
wife got some Venis (Venice) paper so that she might let 
her lord know how things were falling out at home. There 
are evil rumors abroad — the Lord Chamberlain and divers 
other gentlemen of the court have solicited his lands for 
themselves, but only for his life-time, he having made settle- 
ments on his family which prevented their forfeiture. On 
the 1st of February, the year then Ihding at Lady's Day — 
2Sth of March — Mrs. Copley comes from Gatton to look into 
this ; perhaps, if the worse shall come to the worst, to pre- 
pare for another flitting. She was a capable woman seem- 
ingly, and able to take care not only of herself, but of 
the numerous family, five or six children, thrown on her 
hands. She lodges at "the house of Mr. Whyte," citizen 
and merchant tailor in Bow Lane, one of her tenants, and 
does some shopping, besides attending to more important 
business in the matter of fines and indi6lments. Among 
other things she buys "a grammar booke for master Henry, 
covered and past in lethare — 3s. 2d," also "a new boke made 
by one of the Temple against the Rebels — 4s. ;" more im- 
portant still "a copy of commission to inquire of the lands 
and goodes of such persons as have gone over seas with- 
out the Q'' M'*' Lycense and for serche thereof — gd." 

She also bought "a reade goat skyne" and had it dyed and 
dressed to make "jerkins for Maister Henrie and Mr. Wil- 
liam" ; that of "Maister Henrie" was adorned with "a dozen 
of buttons of Gold and a velvet girdle," but Mr. William 
being a younger son, had only "a leatherne girdle." 

On the 24th of February "a wagoyne" came from Gatton 
and Mrs. Copley went home in it, seemingly in bad weather ; 
she "paid for packneedles and packthrede to sowe the blewe 
clothe about the wagoyne 2d." ; and she gave before her de- 
parture to "Mysteres Whyte, her maydes, to Jelyon I2d., 
and to the other Maid 6d." 

Soon the blow fell, ^^^ Howard of Effingham swooped down 



(') chronicle of St. Monica in possession of Augustines of Abbotsligh, England, 



8 Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

on Gatton. Elizabeth had delivered her cousin as a prey 
to his hand, and stripped the stately hall of its armor, sev- 
eral hundred suits having been carried off, whilst Copley's 
books were carted away to Oxford. Mrs. Copley joined 
her husband. This journey took place in 1571, for in 1572, 
Sharpies paid "to Mr. Page the post, for bringing letters 
from my mysteres being beyond seas to my Ld. of Burley, 
Ld. Treasurer, 2d." : it may be the very letter we are about 
to give, which is found in the D: %. P. of Elizabeth edited 
by Bruce. It is dated Antwerp, Dec. 26th, 1572, enclosing 
one to the Queen which deserves insertion, if only to con- 
trast its manly tone with the sickening adulation of the 
epistles addressed to her by Leicester, Hatton, and Raleigh. 
Copley in his letter to Burleigh says : 

The times are so much against him that he has no hope 
of justice ; flies to him for aid and encloses letter to the 
Queen, thus going to the well-head. If Burleigh is unwill- 
ing to move in it, hopes he will give license to his servant, 
Donald Sharpies, to present it, and hopes Burleigh will 
get an answer to it. He gives as his reasons for seeking 
Burleigh's assistance ; "first his wisdom, incorruptibility and 
temperance;" secondly, the union of their houses — "tho' 
your house is now weighty, it can never be stronger by the 
fall of mine ;" thirdly, his ability with her Majesty to defend 
him from wrongdoing. He says he "has not had one penny 
from England, since May 1571" — that he "is 400iJ" in debt, 
it having grown by forbearing, for love of Prince and country, 
to accept foreign pensions," but that the time may come 
when it may be wished that so honest a subject had been 
retained. "If the rigor of that strange statute lately made 
should be executed, yet would my wife enjoy a third of my 
living," and that he has offered the Queen lOO;^ instead 
during his absence. — His letter to Elizabeth we give in full : 

"If my innocency had been a sufficient defense against my 
slanderous enemies, I would not trouble you, but hearing 
through this night's post of the three prosecutions against 
me, with a new charge for property in South wark the nth 
of this Dec, and returnable by the loth of the next month 



A Founder of Maryland. g 

unless you order otherwise, I presume to offer you lOOiT 
a year. I hope you will rather take it dire6lly from me, 
than through the perjury of the jurymen who may award 
it to you. Your profit or safety is not the mark they re- 
gard, but rather their insatiable desire to enrich themselves 
with my spoil. My conversation was peaceable at home : 
during the twelve years of my chargeable and faithful ser- 
vice to you in my, poor calling, I never omitted in any pub- 
lic charge aught that might tend to encourage to love and 
wish the continuance of so happy a government under so 
gracious a Queen. How far I have been from entering into 
pra6lices since my coming here, may appear in that I have 
never been to court, never saw the Duke and never treated 
with him. Though since May twelvemonth I have never 
received a penny of my country, yet I have forborne a 
foreign service, till necessity, which has no law, shall force 
me to the contrary. I have on my hands — which I trust 
will move you to the more compassion for my estate — my 
poor wife and seven small children, of whom my eldest son, 
not yet twelve years of age, is your godson and dedicated 
to you ; and if the advices be true which I receive from the 
University of Douay, where he is brought up, he may prove 
in time to do you and his country good service. My zeal 
and dutiful affeflion to you have abundantly appeared, be- 
ing so great as, though God reduced me back from the 
errors whereunto my unskilful youth was misguided, to the 
embracing of the true Catholic faith, yet never could I enter 
into any practices or conspiracy against you, whom I be- 
seech our Lord long to preserve. If mine enemies object 
that I am not worthy of such favor as to remain by license, 
having departed without it, I did nothing therein unlawful ; 
for the law of nature teacheth every creature to flee from 
imminent peril. The law of nations permits every free man 
to go where he lists, and therefore that wise gentleman, the 
Duke of Alcala, late Viceroy of Naples, making sport with 
the simplicity of a silly gentleman that sued for license to 
go forth of the kingdom, asked him whether he was a man 
or a horse. If he were a horse, then there was indeed re- 



10 Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

straint on him, but if he were a man, he might bestow him- 
self where he listed. Further, the very laws of England, by 
a special proviso in that old servile statute, gave me liberty 
to pass and repass the seas at pleasure, being free of the 
staple ; though I have chosen to live after my better calling. 

Yet had I not attempted to come without license, con- 
sidering the general restraint of that old act, if the mali- 
cious praftices of mine enemies had not overtaken me, de- 
nying me leisure to follow such a suit, unless I would have 
tarried with manifest hazard at my departure, as I signified 
by letter both to you and to the council, being sorry for 
any a6l that might betoken offence to you. 

I trust that these causes will move you to compassion on 
my case and to set your authority for a buckler between me 
and my enemies, who seek my ruin and that of my house, 
without regard to the slander of the government by the note 
of injustice, and cruel peril of the precedent which may be 
withdrawn to the shaking of all estates and conveyances 
within the realm, or to any other respe6l to God or to you. 
In granting this license you shall save a jury of souls, stop 
the raving mouths of my greedy adversaries, and bind me, 
whom necessity is like otherwise to draw into foreign ser- 
vice, to be a loving subjefl and a faithful servant, which I 
trust to signify by some notable service, if you like to em- 
ploy me in any cause wherein a good Christian may, with- 
out hazard to his body and soul, serve his temporal Prince. 
Antwerp, 26 Dec. 1572." 

It seems her Grace did condescend, in consideration of 
the hundred pounds, to become "a buckler ;" at least, the 
property in Southwark remained in the hands of Mrs. Cop- 
ley's agent, who continues the "accompte," paying on the 
8th of 061. 1573, "for a Proclamagon made against certain 
bookes which came from beyond seas, 2''' ." Of one of these 
we shall hear further, — it is now known to have been writ- 
ten by Sir Nicolas Throgmorton, at the instigation of the 
Earl of Leicester; and in it both Burleigh and his cousin 
Bacon, the Lord Keeper, met with very severe treatment. 
They were accused of governing England by Machiavelli- 



A Founder of Maryland. 1 1 

an policy, and it was charged that Burleigh had been "a 
creeper to the cross in Queen Mary's time." This, though 
striflly true, was a disagreeable reminiscence and as well 
forgotten. Also, rude things were said about their parent- 
age ; that it was not so high as that of Norfolk and North- 
umberland, lately sent to the scaffold. Copley, conne6led 
in some way with Lady Burleigh, through the Belknaps, is 
in the Low Countries where this vile book is published ; 
through him we may find the author, perhaps put our 
finger on him. About this time, Mrs. Copley, attended 
by Thomas Brooke, secretary to her husband, slipped over 
to England to attend to her affairs. The "accompte" makes 
considerable mention of "a Mastiffe Dogge" which Brooke 
was appointed to take abroad with him. On the 13th of 
061. there was "carrage of a trunke, a great Fardell, and 
a chest from Mayster White, his house, to Belensgate, 
when my Mysteres went over seas, 6d." This time she 
went with license furnished her by my Lord Burleigh, 
for on the 26 of Nov. Copley writes a courteous letter to 
Dr. Wilson, the Queen's Ambassador, thanking him for that 
favor.^^^ On this letter there is an endorsement — 12th Dec. — 
that Wilson had seen Copley, and they had spoken of a 
book against Elizabeth's title and in favor of that of Mary 
Stuart. This Wilson at once communicates to Burleigh, 
saying that he had promised Copley "if he would bring it, 
and declare the author, he would be an humble suitor to 
the Queen for him." That he continued to hold out in- 
ducements is evident; on the 15 of Dec. 1574, Copley, an- 
swering his persuasions, "does not see how he can return to 
England without danger, the laws now standing as they do ; 
but if his living is restored to him, is willing to give up his 
pension from the King of Spain, renounce his service, and 
serve the Queen." Wilson seems to have transmitted this 
letter to Burleigh, who, on the 28 of the same month, two 
years after Copley had begged his intercession with the 
Queen in the letter already given, answers it and others at 



(1) 8. P. English Foreign Afi'airs, Elizabeth. 



12 Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

great length, regretting that for religious scruples he should 
have left England, inquiring in the most innocent manner 
"the foundations of such a change," and asking if he knows 
"who is the author of a life lately published against himself 
and the Lord Keeper." Copley replies to this from Ant- 
werp, 1575 : he thanks him for allowing "his brother-in-law 
Gage ^'^ and his wife to come over and live here" ; hopes 
Burleigh will not see him spoiled for seeking quiet of 
conscience ; reminds him that in Germany princes use their 
subje6ls of whatever religion, and wishes "that some means 
were adopted to appease these miserable controversies that 
rend the world." Then deftly declining to answer argu- 
ments on religion, he promises not to favor the Queen's 
enemies. "As for the author of the book set forth against 
you and the Lord Keeper, in 1572, I am so unhappy as to 
be unable to tell you. I think the author knew my alliance 
to your house and that of Suffolk, and kept it from me as 
unlikely to allow it ; I was one of the last that saw it, and 1 
believe it was made at home. I have offered in company 
to defend you against any that should say you were not of 
gentle blood. If you suspe6l the author of the book, let 
me know, and I will put him to his purgation." Whence it 
would seem my Lord Treasurer found him a very unsatis- 
fa6lory informer. 

Further badgered by Wilson as "untrustful of the Queen's 
goodness and undutiful in not throwing himself on her 
mercy and returning home," and urged that he shall at least 
leave Antwerp and reside in some city in Germany, Copley, 
writing to Burleigh, March 5th, 1575, refuses to do this, 
on account of "its distance from England and the grossness 
of its language, which he neither understands nor wishes to 
understand." He says further that during his first year of 
service he has gained a noble pension, and that the King of 
Spain is a father to him. "As long as I am entertained by 
him I will truly serve him." Still he wishes that "the Queen 
who has pardoned greater traitors would pardon one void 

<i) Gage of Firle. 



A Founder of Maryland. \% 

of offense, and allow him a portion without binding his ser- 
vices for a supply ;" he has seven children and expefls an 
eighth. 

Chapter hi, 

Foreig)i Service. 

It has been seen from Copley's letter to the Queen how 
reludlant he was to enter into the service of a foreign prince ; 
that such was his real feeling is evinced by the fa6l, that 
though greatly needing money for his large famil)'', five 
years passed from the time of his arrival to his acceptance 
of Spanish aid, though his uncle, the Lord Prior, was all 
powerful at that court, and the Duke of Alva, who ruled the 
Low Countries with an iron rod when he sought refuge 
there, would have gladly received him. His supplications 
to the Queen and ministers treated with profound indiffer- 
ence, Copley seems to have held out as long as he could ; 
at last ''venter non Jiabet aiwes" he writes, and in 1574, 
Burleigh inscribes in his list^^^ of pensioners of the King of 
Spain, "Mr. Copley, 60 ducats a month." Then he becomes 
an obje6l of the deepest interest : Dr Wilson indites letters 
to him, the Lord Treasurer renews his former friendship 
and takes an interest in the state of his soul, and his in- 
formers begin to busy themselves with Copley's concerns. 
Sept. 3rd, 1574, Edward Woodshawe, ^"^ a hardened villain, 
who had been Count Egmont's servant thirtj' five years, 
obliged by his execution to return to England, where he was 
forced by the parcimony of his relatives — he "who was 
brought up like a gentleman not knowing want" — to break 
into a house, steal twenty pounds and return to the Low 
Countries, writes from Antwerp to Burleigh that "Mr Cop- 
ley is in great favor with the New Govorner," Requesens, 
Commendatore of Castile, who succeeded Alva in 1573, 
"but has not much knowledge of martial affairs : he ex- 



t^) Strype's Ilistor)'; Appendix, 
I') S. P.— Foreign Affairs, 



14 Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

amines every Englishman who comes over, and sends all but 
Catholics away ; he has sent Phillips away, and says he ought 
to be hung." This remark shows that Copley had a won- 
derful insight into chara6ler, for Phillips was Walsingham's 
private forger, who twelve years afterwards introduced into 
Mary Stuart's letters to Babington fatal expressions which 
sealed her doom. 

Burleigh's objeft seems to have been to induce his wife's 
kinsman to betray the secrets of Philip's councils by pro- 
mises of a restoration of property and other favors. His 
letters are not given in the S. P., but Copley's are. They are 
kind and friendly — his wife's portion might still be taken 
away, but he speaks always in one tone ; he will always 
honestly serve the king who supports him, whilst he is a true 
subjeft to his own prince. Ere long it was announced in Eng- 
land that the King of Spain had made him Baron of Gatton 
and Raughley and Master of the Maze, and given him 
letters of marque to prey on the commerce of the Dutch. 

On the 17 of Nov. 1575, he writes to the Queen that he 
had heard from De Boiscot, newly arrived at Court, that 
she was offended with him for having drawn her mariners 
to serve the Catholic King; and reminds her that she, from 
amity to Philip, had given De Requesens leave to do so ; and 
Copley, being aware of this, thought she would not obje6l 
that he should take a commission from him, intending it only 
to apply of course to the (Dutch) rebels; that he and his 
friends had dealt openly with the wherrymen of Sandwich 
to procure rowers for the new galleys, and that he had no 
thought of doing it without her knowledge. He had also 
heard that she was offended with him because he had taken 
greater titles than those belonging to him. The com- 
mission had only styled him ''Nobilis Angliis et domimis 
Gatton et Raughley'' Nobilis was used for gentleman, as 
generosus meant a gentle Englishman and not an English 
gentleman. On the continent armiger means only a cutler or 
swordbearer; and in Spain it was usual to call all nobles 
lords. "It is said I fish in troubled waters, but all the waters 
in Christendom are troubled by fa6lions ; and I had much 



A Founder of Maryland. 1 5 

rather fish in the calm rivers and sweet streams of my own 
country." Elizabeth, who "liked not her sheep marked with 
others' brands," was very indignant with Copley now — per- 
haps she was not pleased altogether with the lesson in Latin 
from her old teacher's brother — and expressed her sentiments 
in a letter to the Commendatore to which Burleigh told 
the Advocate Fiscal "he would not have consented had he 
known it, as Copley was related ta his wife, and, but for 
preciseness of religion, an honest gentleman." This storm 
soon passed away, for letters from Spain to the Queen, to 
Burleigh, and others (perhaps captured in a Dutch ship), 
falling into his hands, Copley courteously forwarded them 
to those to whom they were addressed. In consequence of 
this favor, Gage and his wife had leave to return, and an in- 
timation was extended to Copley that he might do the same, 
"as his fidelity was not doubted, only his course disliked." 
"Surely it is in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird," 
he knew that his case was not like Gage's, for since he left 
England a law had been passed by which "I would have to 
yield myself to a bishop and renounce my religion, than 
which I would rather beg my bread," but he would gladly re- 
turn if he could as a Catholic. All through the summer of 
1586 the negotiation continued, Burleigh pretending that 
he is exerting every effort to obtain the recall of Copley. 
To secure this financial sacrifices seem to have been made, 
as Copley says he "is willing to give up his rents to en- 
joy security of person and quiet of conscience." In spite of 
the strong hints of his correspondent, he imparts no infor- 
mation, though towards the end of July he shows that he sees 
through the design of those who are trifling with him, "that 
no drop of mercy falls," and that he "is being punished by 
God for youthful errors." 

After the death of the Commander in 1576, the Spanish 
soldiers, whose pay had long been withheld, broke out into 
violent mutiny, took and plundered Alost, Lierre, and other 
cities, and even threatened Antwerp itself Jerome de 
Roda, the only one of the state council who had escaped 
out of Brussels to Antwerp, claiming to be sole Governor of 



1 6 Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

the Netherlands, assumed the chief authority in that ill- 
fated city, where there seems to have been, for some time 
before the final day of wrath, forebodings of the coming 
storm. Copley, who up to this time had resided there with 
his family, writes on the i ith of 061. from Lierre, where "he 
lodges with one of the court," to Burleigh, explaining that 
the report of his having been arrested in Antwerp for at- 
tempts in favor of the King of Spain was untrue. De Roda 
had asked him to raise and command a company of his own 
countrymen, but he had refused ; though he had offered to 
serve with his own servants to show he was not afraid and 
willing to serve the King. He had lately heard from the 
Lord Prior, "who will soon be over for freer talk" — and 
rejoices "for freedom of conscience in the midst of garboils." 
On the 3rd of Nov., three weeks afterwards, Antwerp was 
stormed and taken by the mutineers with all the horrors 
then attending the reduction of a city — "the Spanish Fury" 
it was long called, — and great cause had Copley for grati- 
tude that those dear to him were in safety. On the 29th of 
December, an informer writing from Luxemburg, says, "Mr. 
Copley is here, who seems to have no love towards her 
Majesty or his country." He had gone there no doubt, to 
wait on Don John, who arrived at that place, in the dis- 
guise of a Moorish slave, the day after Antwerp was stormed. 

{To be co)itinued.) 



A Founder of Maryland. ly 



Chapter iv. • 
Hopes of Return. 

There now comes a curious incident in the correspond- 
ence. In the beginning of 1576, De Requesens, vvho culti- 
vated the friendsliip of I^lizabeth, complying; with her wishes 
ordered away all her exiled subjefts ; and Nevilles, Nortons 
and Markinfelds departed with their miserable dissensions, 
and hopeless plots to other places. Copley, of course, came 
under the same ban, but he found means to obtain from 
Elizabeth a letter to the Commendatore, desiring him to 
show favor to Thomas Copley who has done her good ser- 
vice, and is not of those traitors and rebels who have fled 
from the realm, but is abroad for his religion and liberty ot 
conscience. She can not deny that he is ancientment ot 
her blood, or that he has formerly honorably served her. 
The copy of this letter is in French, dated Hampton Court, 
Feb. 1576. 

Folded with this in the State Papers as though it had re- 
lation to the same person, is a document without date or 
signature which bears a singular meaning when viewed in a 
light received from another quarter. The words it contains 
are these : 

'T have spoken with your friend, whose answer is he can 
not send the bird until it is hatched. The hen has busily 
built her nest and sits fast ; so sure as any of her eggs be 
disclo-sed, you shall have speedy advertisement, not by let- 
ter, but by a trusty messenger, whom I have already .sent 
many miles hence to serve that turn. You must procure 
him a passport from that side, and I will take charge to do 



1 8 Life of Father Tliovias Copley. 

the like from tliis. Here is more likelihood of peace than 
war." 

Many years afterwards, John, the youn<^est son of Copley, 
joined the English College at Rome to study for the priest- 
hood ; and entered, as was usual, an account of his previous 
life in a book kept for that purpose. He says — "I was born 
at Louvaine in 1577; and nine days after my birth I was 
sent to England, where I was nursed and brought up until 
my ninth year." We learn from the same source that Rich- 
ard Southwell of St. Faith's, in Norfolk, who had conformetl, 
received his wife's nephew, this poor little waif whose pass- 
age .seems to have been taken before his birth. There can 
be little doubt that Copley paid well for leave to send his 
child home, as he had before paid for his wife's portion. 

By a comparison of dates it seems probable that the two 
brothers-in-law e.xchanged children, or perhaps, if Bridget 
Copley were living she had a hand in the matter. Robert, 
her second son, was then a bright bo)' of fifteen, but he can 
enter neither of the universities. His cousins, Henry, William 
and Peter, are doing A\"ell at Dr. Allen's new college, now at 
Rheims — may he not go there and be trained in the right 
path, as one of his uncle's children, while this small infant, 
whose soul is as yet as safe in one place as another comes 
to us here in Norfolk ? 

It is certain that Robert Southwell, born in 1562, went in 
his fifteenth year, 1577, to Douay ; and that in later years, 
when foremost in merit and danger, he tenderly interested 
himself for a brother of this }'outh, Anthony, procuring him 
in 1586, through Cardinal Allen, a position in the English 
College at Rome, and a pension from the Pope, a fa\'or most 
ungratefully requited. 

A grave mistake has been made by those writers who 
have accused Thomas Copley of imparting information to 
the English government.*^'^ Strype after quoting from the let- 
ters we have given, .says honestly, "his cau.se still hangs du- 
bious, the Court still doubtful of him ; but 1 find in 1577, 
Dr. Wilson still tampering with him." In fa6l, that ambas- 

(1) Strype, Vol. 2, 



A Fo7inder of Maryland. I9 

sador writes to Burleigh from Brussels ^^Mn the spring of 
this >'ear, that Mr. Copley has written him from Hoye, but 
has not satisfied him, as Mr. Bingham made him believe he 
would ; in April he says that he cannot get Mr. Copley to 
be plain enough with liim ; again that he "is so fearful and 
precise I cannot get any particulars out of him. Don John 
has had four posts from Spain, four from Rome, and two 
from the Emperor, yet Mr. Copley is ignorant of all these 
things." 

The Court is at Louvain where Wilson proposes to go, 
perhaps to see what can be done in the wa}' of false keys 
and briber)' after the diplomatic manner of that time. On 
the 14th of April. Copley writes to Wilson from Louvain 
that he is sorry he makes so light of the information he has 
given him ; it were eas\- to forge an untruth, but he will 
never do so to please any man ; what he (Copley) says is 
true and what Wilson will needs persuade himself but 
causeless fears which some man has put into his head ; and 
that there is no danger of a blow to their country. It must 
be remembered that the Netherlands though torn by civil 
wars were still at peace with England; the Dutch sought to 
gain the aid ultimately lent them, and the Governor's ap- 
pointment by Spain to prevent England from taking sides 
with the enemy, made large concessions to her. Thus when 
Elizabeth's ministers found they could not bend Thomas 
Copley to their purposes, it was determined to secure his 
banishment from a land, where in spite of Beggar and Span- 
iard and Walloon, Catholic, Lutheran and Calvinist, strug- 
gling in a frightful chaos of blood and ruin — the exile wrote 
he "had found liberty of conscience and peace from gar- 
boils." On the 1st of May, 1577, Don John made his tri- 
umphal entrance into Brussels ; on the 7th of that month 
Copley wrote from Louvain to Dr. W'ilson, complaining 
that his servant. Brooks, on reaching I^igland, had been 
taken and spoiled of all he had, and carried to Court, merely 
because he had taken some piftures, sent without Copley's 
knowledge by women and children to others at home. He 

0) S. P. Flanders. ^ 



20 Life of Father Tlionias Copley. 

remains in Louvain by His Hit^hness' advice, as the Queen's 
ambassador had begged he sliould be sent out of tlie coun- 
try. He does not care whether he sta)^s or <;oes, but as \v)W^ 
as lie is entertained by the King of Spain lie will truly serve 
him. This then was the reason that he ga\'e up, almost 
from the hour of his birth, his )'ounge.st born — he at least 
shall breathe the native air and stretch his young limbs on 
English turf. Exiled from home, driven from Antwerp and 
now from Louvain, who can tell what dark hours, what 
dangerous tra\'el, what pestilential air in beleagured cities is 
before them ; so the little child, confided let us hope, to 
faithful hands, crosses the sea and all record of the father 
disappears from the State Papers for three years. We learn, 
however, from St. Monica's Chronicle that he retired with 
his family to France, having been recommended to Henry 
in. by De Vaux,^^^ Don John's Secretary. Both Copley 
and his eldest son were knighted by that King. This Sir 
Henry Copley, own uncle to the Maryland founder, and said 
to have been a youth of singular promise, died at Paris of 
the pleuri.sy in the nineteenth year of his age. 

Soon afterwards Copley, sorrowful and yearning more 
than ever for his native land, met Dr. Parry, one of Burleigh's 
peripatetic informers, a man of fathomless treachery, who 
w'as destined by a strange fate to meet the bloody death to 
which he had beguiled others. At that time he seemed 
merely a gentleman making the grand tour, a fashion set by 
the Earl of Oxford — "home staying youths have homely 
wits." This person, having frecjuented Copley's house, writes 
to his employer in 1580, commending in the highest terms 
Sir Thomas' dutiful speech of Her Highness and offering, if 
he is allowed to go home, to become security {ox his good 
behavior; mentioning the relationship between the exiled 
and the young Cecils, and concluding with, "in truth, my 
lord, there is nothing more apparent in the face and coun- 
tenance of the whole household than to conform in the least 
to whatever I have written." 

<') Strype, 



A Founder of Maryland. 21 

III the suinmcr^*^ of this year Copley himself wrote to 
Burleii;h thanking- him /for his favorable mind, conveyed 
through Parry, and arguing against withholding his title 
because conferred by a foreign king, when so many English 
titles are conferred on strangers. After expressing his de- 
sire for a restoration of the Queen's favor, he says in a post- 
script that as he cannot send a handsome present, he en- 
closes him a pedigree of the Belknap side of his family. In 
this he showed a perfe6l appreciation of the favorite weak- 
ness of Elizabeth's favorite minister, who, despised by the 
ancient nobilit\- as a new man, sought to attach himself, 
parasite like, to any old tree — if he could gain their living 
as well as claim their blood, why not ? That many hours 
which he might have spent in unravelling plots, mostly of 
his own devising, were given to the fascinating amusement 
of drawing up tables, not only of his own descent but those 
of many other persons, is known to every one who has gone 
through the English State papers. Jessopp has shown in 
his "one Generation of a Norfolk House" how he tried to 
prove his affinity to the Walpoles, when the estates of that 
family were likely to fall to the crown, owing to recusancy 
and other charges against the heirs. The manors of the 
Copleys are broad, they count kin with many great names 
— even with Her Highness ; if certain things should fall out 
it were well to keep the connection in view in behalf of Rob- 
ert and the other hopeful Cecil inheritors ! 

This attention was well received. Soon after, Copley 
writes the Lord Treasurer that he takes advantage of Par- 
ry's going over to renew his suit, hoping that his wife, 
whom he intends shortly, to send home, will be received. It 
may be that the intercession of the Lord Prior, who this 
year secured from the Venetians important concessions for 
English merchants, obtained that favor; at any rate Donald 
Sharpies made the final entry in the "Accompte" "1581 — 
Delivered to My Mysteres, Mrs. Copley, at Mr, Whyte his 

fl) English S. P. Foreign Affairs. — France 



22 ' Tdfe of Father Thomas Copley. . 

house, in Watlinge Strete at her last being here in Inglande, 
£ 20." 

No doubt, Lady Copley had the happiness of embracing 

i' the infant she had not seen for three years J she was probably 

/accompanied in this journey by another son, Peter, whom 

we find in 1580^^) writing from Paris to his father at Befton, 

, that after a difficult journey they had reached France, that 

I his brother had resumed his studies and they want money. 

I This third son of Sir Thomas Copley became a priest ; he 

i^ is mentioned in the Douay list as having taken orders on 

' '^ /his coming out of England in 1582. and having been sent 

o / back. He may have been the priest Fennell or Blithe "en- 

JJ I tertained" afterwards by "Lady Copley — young Shelley," 

^ I but as John Copley said nothing of him when he gave his 

^ \ account at the English College, it is probable that he died 

Vbefore 1599. 

Henceforth we lose sight of Burleigh ; perhaps, Lady 
Copley discovered during her absence that no favors were 
to be expefted from his cold, calculating temper, though it 
would seem that the dark fanaticism of Sir Francis Wal- 
singham, to whom Copley now applied, offered even less 
prospeft of success. It must be remembered, however, that 
in January, 1582, the Duke of Anjou was in England, and, 
to speak figuratively, on his knees before Elizabeth ; rings 
had been exchanged and the whole world believed that as 
soon as the bridegroom should be invested with the sover- 
eignty of the Netherlands, which had been offered him, their 
nuptials would take place; and though Campion and his 
companions were butchered during his love-making, that the 
more earnest among her reformed subje6ls might not be 
alarmed — a proceeding which Anjou viewed with profound 
indifference — it was highly probable that some relaxation to 
the Catholics might be expe6led should he once become 
her husband. 

On the 3rd of January, 1581, Copley writes from Paris to 
\ his cousin, Lady Walsingham, acknowledging a letter re- 

ceived from her. Her husband. Sir Francis, was in Paris at 










A Founder of Maryland. 23 

that time, having gone to France the July before ^^^ and 
"busied himself in looking for plots involving Catholics ; 
not finding any he invented them, suborning false witnesses 
to swear to them. Burleigh seems to have been his ac- 
complice in this proceeding ;" so it was not about ribbons 
or gloves that his wife bethought herself of her good cousin. 
In this letter Copley says, referring to their connexion : 
"There lived not, I think, a more good-hearted couple than 
my good father and my dear aunt, your grandmother ; I 
have seen them both, old as they were, weep with joy when 
she sometimes came to Gatton." He then mentions that 
he had been twelve )-ears deprived of his property, and 
though he has enough to live on, there is no overplus. He 
laments the dissensions among those "who believe in one 
God in three persons, which is the principal foundation," 
and concludes by asking her intercession with Sir Francis 
in obtaining lea\e for him and his family to return to Eng- 
land. 

Walsingham for some reason flattered this hope and Cop- 
ley believed that license to return would soon be granted 
him. In April he writes that he is going, with his wife's 
hou.sehold, to remove to Rouen, there to await the Queen's 
decision, wliich if granted, his "case would be the more 
honorable, seeing the whole world is ringing with the vig- 
orous persecution of the innocent Catholics." Surely only 
a bad courtier would have penned such lines while his cause 
hung undecided ! 

Later, after a letter from Sir Francis' secretary, comes an 
outburst of loyalty, a declaration that he loves the Queen 
dearly and had never imputed the hard dealings used to 
him to her, but to one whom God would not suffer to live 
to enjoy such benefit of his livelihood as he hoped — God 
forgive us all ! 

All this time Copley was in the service of the King of 
Spain, though he seems to have obtained leave of absence 
from the Prince of Parma, then engaged in reducing Ou- 
denarde. The very day that place fell, July the 5th, Sir 

(1) Sympson's life of Edmund Campion, S. J. 



24 Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

Thomas writes Walsingham that his "absence from the Low 
Countries, dutiful speeches of the Queen, and open hope of 
being recalled," have already caused him to lose credit 
"which it is time to repair, lest between two stools I fall to 
the ground ;" and after reciting all his claims on the Queen, 
including their relationship through the Bullyns, begs that 
whatever is done for him may be done quickly. To induce 
dispatch, he sends according to promise an annuity of £\QO 
a year from the Manor of Gatton to Lady Walsingham 
"while I shall by your means be permitted to remain abroad" 
— the greater desire being now abandoned. Whilst this 
correspondence was going on and the heartsick exile was 
deluded with false hopes of return, it seemed to Walsingham 
that it would be well to know what visitors were entertained 
by him in Rouen. "William Smith who had lived nine years 
in St. Paul's church yard" was accordingly sent over and 
obtained admission to Copley's service. Having been in it 
five months, he informs his employer that "to Lord Copley's 
house resort Lord Stourton's brother, Browne, Vaux, Tal- 
bot, Tichborne and Pounde," that audacious nephew of the 
Earl of Southampton, who, but a little while before, had pub- 
lished Campion's bold challenge to the Privy Council. The 
spy corroborates the statements of his master's expeftations 
from England being known and that though "he is going 
to the Low Countries, it is thought he will lose his pension." 

Chapter v. 

Disappointment and Death. 

In the spring of 1583, Copley still lingering in Rouen, 
beguiled by Walsingham, wrote, "Hope deferred makes the 
heart sick ; fourteen years is a long time for a man to be 
kept out of his own." By accounts lately sent of his wife's 
poor portion, he finds it diminished, whilst not three days 
since, he had a schedule of twenty pistoles more a month 
of entertainment sent him without any solicitation. He 
finds those abroad are as loath to lose him as his own coun- 
try to help him; yet if the Queen will restore him his reve- 



A Founder of Maryland. 25 

nuc he will bestow every penny on her and his friends in 
England! In May of this year, William, now heir of Sir 
Tlionias Copley, joined the Prince of Parma at Tournay 
which city he had lateK' taken after a brilliant defense un- 
der the Princess P2spinoy. This youth, then in his nine- 
teenth year, was well l-ecei\ed b\' Alexander Farnese and 
had a grant of fifteen crowns a month ; but could not ob- 
tain another year's leave of absence for his father, who is 
recalled to the camp. This fa6l Sir Thomas imparts to 
Walsingham, saying- that "it is better to have lack of living 
with liberty, than living without it at home — nay, as matters 
are now handled of both, if it be true that twenty £% a 
month is exafted of all Catholics. I tremble when I think 
what consequences such hard dealings are like to breed." 
He now belie\^ed with his friends that he deceived himself 
in hoping for any good unless he went to P^ngland ; which 
he dared not do "for fear of Morris, the pursuivant, and his 
mates, at whose mercy I would be loath to stand ; it is bet- 
ter to sue for grace here than at home in a dungeon." 

All prospe6l of the profligate Anjou's wearing the crown 
matrimonial of England was at an end ; after having broken 
faith with both religions and all parties, he was tried as con- 
stitutional duke of Brabant, grew weary of the checks im- 
posed upon him ; and, attempting an unsuccessful coup- 
d'etat in Antwerp, was driven from that city to die, not long 
afterwards at Chateau Therry, "w ith strong symptoms of 
poison" — as became a Valois. If the Catholics ever cher- 
ished hopes of alleviation of their miseries through him they 
were over ; and Walsingham seems to have deemed it no 
longer useful to treat with one, who, while suing for grace, 
had the boldness to hold language like this, and to be friends 
with the outlawed friends of Campion ; as to his revenues 
what use to grant them to him to live on abroad when they 
will serve the servants of the Eord at home? Therefore, 
"all favors are withheld until he returns home and throws 
him.self on the Queen's mercy" — the quality of which Cop- 
ley knew too well ; he writes to Sir P'rancis in courteous 
and dignified terms thanking him for his good will though 



26 Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

it has not been able to do him aii\- f^ood ; iniputini^ his ill 
success to the error of his own youth towards God, not to 
any offense ai^ainst Her Highness. 

He had received an intimation that he should spend no 
more Spanish crowns in France, nor ha\e one jjenny more 
out of Flanders until he returned to his place about the 
Prince of Parma's person. He will remain at St. Omers un- 
til Antwerp or Bruges are reduced and he will trouble 
Walsingham no more. The date of this last letter is July 
1583 ; on the 24th of September, 1584, Sir Thomas Copley 
died in Flanders in the service of the King of Spain, an 
upright, loyal English gentleman who, had "libert}'to wor- 
ship God according to the diftates of his conscience been 
granted himf^night have served his country as faithfull}' as 
Raleigh and more honestl)- than Drake. 

It is impossible to study Copley's letters without forming 
a very high opinion of his chara6ler : of his devotion to his 
religion there can be no doubt, for professions of Catholicity 
to Burleigh and Walsingham were not likeK- to be insincere. 
Whilst this may recommend him to those who agree \\ ith 
him, his honesty of purpose and manliness of nature should 
command the respeft of all who \aluc those c|ualities. 
Driven by persecution into exile, plundered of his posses- 
sions, he remembers that he is an Anglo-Saxon freeman de- 
prived of his rights, and represents his wrongs to the Queen 
in words which have a far-o.ff sound of Hampden or Henry. 
Comparing his language to her with that used by the sub- 
servient slaves who trembled at her glance and stabbed 
themselves when she frowned, we feel the superiority of this 
banished Catholic; he is reclaiming his own unjustly with- 
held in words which might be used to-day ; they became as 
worms beneath her feet uMnfjiirL^i i w i ri i a forfeited manor or 
a new monopol)-. Though he desired above earthly things 
to return home and was willing in all things to render to 
Csesar that which belonged to him, he steadil)' refused "to 
undertake more than as a good Christian he can perform :" 
dear are the wide walls of Leigh and the fertile fields of 
Gatton ; still dearer is a man's soul which he must save ; 



A Founder of Maryland. 27 

nor through all those years of exile when "no droj) of mercy 
fell" could he be lured to betray the king whose bread he 
ate ; — others might be won to such baseness, but not for 
him was the \'ile trade of the informer. He lived for years 
surrounded by the adherents of Mary Stuart, yet his loyalty 
to I'21izabeth as his rightful Queen was never doubted ; in- 
deed to the last he entertained an affeftion for her suffi- 
ciently surprising when we consider the treatment he re- 
ceived. His confidence that ultimately "her virtuous con- 
science," as he called it, would recognize the wrong done 
him and recall him, is constantly expressed and is pathetic 
when we remember how little she had of either quality. 

But one charafleristic impresses us more strongh' than 
any of these — a consciousness, that came to him far ahead 
of the times when driven to seek the proteftion of Philip 
and Alva, that it might be possible for men of different re- 
ligions to live together in peace ; his soul sickens over the 
contentions that rend the world ; his eyes turn admiringly 
towards "the Emperor of Germany who uses his subje6ls of 
both faiths." "Why," he asks of a statesman incapable of 
rising to such a height, "should we, who believe in one God 
in three persons, persecute each other about matters of less 
importance?" 

Fifty years afterwards a handful of men, of whom his own 
grandson and namesake was one, proclaimed perfe6l relig- 
ious toleration to all Christian sefts on an isolated spot in 
the New World, with a result well known, it being highly 
probable that his transmitted teaching greatly influenced 
that aft. The j'ounger Thomas Coplc}- had, as will be 
proved, far more share than has been supposed in the foun- 
dation of Maryland ; and to the forgotten Confessor and 
neglefted Jesuit we are 'i'ndebted'Ji:"' "the act of Toleration." 
Sir Thomas Copley died in his fort\-ninth \-ear, not a fortu- 
nate man in the world's estimation, but hajjpy he believed, 
in being able to retain "a conscience void of offen.se ;" also 
ha])py that he died before things chanced as they ere long 
did, when he either would have been forced to abandon the 
King who had befriended him, or to meet with the Armada, 
English galleys set in battle array. 



28 Life of Father T/iot/ias Cof^Iey. 

He left eight children; of his four daughters the eldest 
had married one c^f Parma's captain's, and another became 
the second wife, in I5<S5, at Dundalk, of Richard Stani- 
hurst, the intimate friend of Campion; thus adding another 
link to the chain which bound the Copleys to the foremost 
martyrs of the faith in England. College companions at 
Oxford, they had gone together to Ireland where Stani- 
hurst's father had been speaker of the House of Commons ; 
and Campion's history of that country, and a contribution to 
Holinshed's history were long supposed to have been writ- 
ten by his friend. Stanihurst had some literary credit of his 
own ; he was the first who attempted English hexameters, 
ha\'ing published, 1 583, a translation of the first four books 
of the yEneid. "He bussed his pretty prating jjarrot" is his 
way of expressing that Jupiter kissed his daughter. Both 
of Stanihurst's sons by Helen Copley became Jesuits ; he on 
her death also took orders and died chaplain to Albert and 
Isabella in 161 8. 

Chapter vi. 

TJic Family in England. 

Lady Cople)', who had Mersham Park, besides other 
property settled on her for life, returned to England with 
William, owner of Gatton and the other estates of his family, 
and Margaret, an unmarried daughter. Anthon\' is men- 
tioned in the pilgrim book of the English College, as in 
Rome in 1584; — and soon after, as one of the students — 
while little John was still with his uncle Southwell at St. 
P^aith's, though reclaimed by his mother on her return. 
The fall of 1586 was a season darker than usual to the un- 
fortunate Catholics ; worse than the insults, fines and im- 
prisonment they were forced to endure were the evils 
brought upon them by tliat fated princess, shut uj) amongst 
them, and endowed with some strange power to draw the 
young, the noble and the gifted to their death — 

"The bodies and the bones of those 

Who sought in other days to pass 
Were withering in the thorny close, 

Or scattered bleaching in the grass ;" 



r^ 



A Foituder of Maty land. 29 

they saw tlicni not, nor Gifford's treaclicry, nor Walsino- 
ham's wiles, but only one face fairer than that of which their 
Norse ancestors cauj^ht tyhmpses in the chn of battle : — trul)- 
to them was Mary Stuart "a chooser of the slain." Anions- 
the youths iniplicatetl in \Valsin<^ham's conspiracy was 
Robert Gage, second son of Robert Ga^^e of Halino-, Surrey, 
a Catholic gentleman, who had been a member of Par- 
liament. The N'oung man had been ignorant of the attempt 
until after its discovery, but sought to assist the flight of 
his friends and was, as accessory after the fa6l, executed with 
more than usual barbarit\- at St. Giles in the Fields, on the 
15th of September. Ten days before, his elder brother John 
had been arre^sted and committed to the Clink prison. Mar- 
garet Copley was also in custod}' at this time, and severely 
interrogated as to her knowledge of a person called Phipps,<*^ 
now known to have been the Re\'. Nicholas Smith who was 
also arrested ; he owned that he li\'ed at Gatton and was 
supported by Lad}' Copley, he being her kinsman ; he had 
been to Gage's house the night before. The two young 
recusants who thus shared a common danger were, soon 
after their discharge, married and li\ed at Haling, as quietly 
as those ex'il times would permit, until 1590. They were 
then both arrested at a Mass said by the Re\'. George Bees- 
ley, for which he was tried on the first and hung on the 
second of June. Gage and his wife were also condemned 
and, after two years imprisonment, drawn to the gallows in 
a cart with their hands ignominioush' tied, but received a 
respite and were not further punished except by dejjrivation 
of goods. ^-^ He was imprisoned in the Tower ; and in the 
Broad Arrow tower, between the first and second recess, is 
shown a long Latin inscription, consisting partly of biblical 
texts and partly of refleftions on the last day, made it is 
suppo.sed in expe6lation of death, most ingeniously cut, and 
signed by him. 

Haling, with about five hundred pounds a year, was 
granted to Howard of Effingham, son of him who had spoil- 

(» D. S. P. (ii) Brayley's Tower of London. 



30 Life of Father Thomas Coptey. 

ed Copley ; nor was it ever restored — Gacje and wife were 
long forced to live on the charity of their friends, Gage of 
Firle, doubtlessly assisted by Lady Copley. They were the 
parents of Sir Henry Gage, Governor of Oxford, who fell at 
Culumbridge fighting for Charles I. and of several other sons 
who were priests. 

This year there landed on the coast of Norfolk, Robert 
Southwell ; he had been known at Douay as "the beautiful 
auburn boy ;" and was now a man, who, at any j^eriod, 
would hax'c won distinftion ; as poet, in beauty of rhythm 
and wealth of imagery he bears a close resemblance to Shel- 
ley ; strange to say, they were descended from a common 
ancestor. His birth, education and accomplishments enti- 
tled him to a place amongst those brilliant men who have 
lent such splendor to the reign of Elizabeth ; yet not to bow 
at her shrine, or to rixal them in love or war had this young 
hero, generous, brave, un.selfish, returned. It was to redeem 
the pledge given five }'ears ago by Campion, to lurk in gar- 
ret chambers and false chimneys during the day; to go 
forth at night to bur\' the dead, to comfort the dying, to 
strengthen the weak ; often not knowing where to rest his 
head on which a price was set as that of a wolf; and to 
meet at last shameful tortures and a horrible death \\'\\\\ a 
fortitude and courage almost incredible. 

From the first, he, as well as his Superiors, had recognized 
the future before him, and he easily obtained a position as a 
scholar of the Pope and a pension for his cousin, Anthony 
Copley, at the English College, who requited this kindness 
by becoming a .spy for Burleigh. A list of Englishmen 
in Rome transmitted by him may be found in the fourth 
volume of Strype's Memorials ; and unpublished letters of 
the same charafter relating to Spain and Flanders are said 
to exist in the Lansdowne MSS. However, the other mem- 
bers of his family seemed to have been regarded with great 
suspicion at that time ; we find "William CopFey of Gatton^'^ 
committed to the charge of Anthon\- Radcliffe, Alderman 

of London, until the Council return from Fotheringay," 
_ ^^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ _ 



A Founder of Maryland. 3 1 

who reports to Davidson tliat his prisoner "is very tra6lable 
and he thinks may be easily won to be a good Christian." 
This hopeful young man was far enough from realizing sueh 
expectations ; for on becoming of age, he found that to en- 
jo)' his estate he would ha\e to take the oath of supremacy; 
to avoid which, he let it at small leases, took fines in their 
l)lace and escaped to Flanders "with only one servant," no- 
ted as a rare instance of self-denial at a time, when men of 
rank were surrounded by man\' retainers. 

Chapter vii. 
Marriaf^c of William Copley. 

There li\ed at that time in Lou\ain an English famil)- 
esteemed on the continent for high cultivation and x'enerated 
for their intimac\- with (Mtc of the greatest men of that cen- 
tur\-. 

Margaret Griggs, who married a gentleman named Clem- 
ents, had been the intimate friend of Margaret Roper and 
an inmate of the cultured household of Sir Thomas More; 
he had ah\ays greatly regarded her. and a few days before 
his tranquil passage to the scaffold he sent to her a myste- 
rious package, the haircloth shirt which, unknown to oth- 
ers, he had long worn, but which he had confided to her. 
She remained long enough in England to assi.st the Carthu- 
sians of Sion House, each chained to a post and starved to 
death in prison, to the roof of which she gained access and 
let down food to them until discovered and prevented by 
their jailors ; she then escaped abroad. Of her daughters, 
Winifred, who married Sir William Rastall, nephew and 
biographer of Sir Thomas More, is said by Fuller "to haxe 
been an e.\a6l Grecian ;" to Margaret, Prioress of the Au- 
gustine nuns of St. Ursula, Louvain, she gave the relic of the 
Chancellor which is now at Abbotslcigh, luigland. Helen, 
a third daughter, became the wife of Thomas Prideaux of 
Devonshire, who seems, from letters of that time, to have 
a6ted as lawyer for his fellow refugees in the courts of P^lan- 
j^ers. To this couple was born an only daughter Magdalen; 



32 Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

"who was brouL^ht up at her aunt's convent ; she was finely 
educated, liad the Latin tongue perfeft, also poetry, was 
skillful in painting- and of good judgement and powers," says 
St. Monica's chronicle. On reaching maturity, she was 
taken by her father to Spain and met William Copley there. 
Father Holt, writing in 1589 from Bru.s.sels to Cardinal Al- 
len in Rome, says he has had a letter from Sir Francis I^^n- 
glefield in Madrid, who says that "the bans between young- 
Copley and Mistress M. Prideaux were asked on Candlemas 
tla\' ; he has more need of wit than a wife in these trouble- 
some times — but youth will have its swing," adds the good 
])riest. Thus it would seem that the mother of our Mary- 
land founder had not degenerated from the attainments oC 
those who had preceded her, nor A\as she unworthy to rear 
him who was to help to lay the corner-stone of a great edi- 
fice. William Cople}- had a pension from the King of 
Spain, and lived in that country for many years. In January 
1596, he writes to his cousin, Robert Tempest, Mignon 
College, Paris, about some jewels and apparel of his which 
were at Rheims ; he wishes them sent to him, as he is not 
going to Flanders nor to England until it is converted which 
he thinks \\\\\ be "in three or four years" — it does seem "he 
wanted w it." 

Chapter viii. 

Purth of Father lliomas Copley in Madrid. 

The four children of William and his first wife were all 
born in Spain, w hich fact was afterwards a prote6lion from 
pursui\'ants and rabble of that kind to Father Thomas who, 
born in 1594, was the eldest son, though he on becoming a 
priest transferred his rights as to famil)- inheritance to his 
brother William. The early education of p'ather Thomas 
must have been received at the ancestral seat of Gatton. 
The Copleys had returned about 1 603 ; during their ab- 
sence in Spain the proceeds of the estates hatl been enjoyed 
by Sir William Lane, whose mother was a sister of Sir 
Thomas Copley. The nomination for the borough of Gat- 



A Founder of Maryland. 33 

ton had been in the liands (if the government ; Francis 
l^acon, wlio was also a relative throiii^h the ubiquitous 
Belknaps. at one time sat in Parliament for that place. 

The return of the Copleys from Spain to Gatton after an 
exile of many years, which they endured willingly and joy- 
full)- for their faith, was brou<^ht about in this wa\-. When 
Isabella and Albert of Austria went to t^overn in the Low 
Countries, William Cople\- had his pension transferred and 
also went thither to be near home, and in 1599 his wife 
crossed over to Eni^land to see if there were any possibility 
of recoxerini;" the estates. Before her departure, she placed 
Mar}-,^'^ her eldest daui^hter, then only seven years of ay,e, 
at St. Ursula's, at Lou\ain. with her aunt; her other chil- 
dren, includini;- Thomas, were then \-ery yount;- and it is not 
known what disposition was made of them. Lady Copley 
remained awa\' in Ens^land three years, when finding" that 
nothing was to be accomplished as long as Elizabeth lived, 
she returned to her husband. On the accession of James in 
1603 and the proclamation of pardon, William Copley and 
his famil)' returned to Gatton ; he compounded for his es- 
tates in the sum of /^2O0O, to raise which he was obliged to 
sell a manor ; besides this, "he paid ;^20 a month from that 
time until the present," says St. Monica's Chronicle from 
wliich the abo\x' facts are taken. 

The persecuted Catholics had expe6led, with reason, 
some alleviation of their sufferings from the son of Mary 
Stuart ; the\' were soon deceived, as not only the previous 
exactions continued, but others more distressing came upon, 
them. Those among them who had property were begged 
and obtained by James' favorites and courtiers "to make 
money of" by whatever means they could, as coolly as if 
they had been cattle. We find at the commencement of the 
reign of James a grant for that purpose of William Copley 
to the Earl of Southampton. This may have been an a6l of 
friendship to prevent his falling into other hands, South- 

0) Mary remained at Louvain two years, and though young she exhibited a 
fitnes.s for religiou.s life, but her father reclaimed her, saying he would have 
her see the world ere she relinquished it. Later on Mary, and Helen her 
sister, were professed at Louvain. 



34 J-if^ of Father Thomas Copley. 

ampton's father having been a recusant himself and in cus- 
tody on that charge, of Sir William More of Loosely, when 
this Earl, Shakespere's friend, was born. It has been im- 
possible to discover the exa6l date of the return of the Cop- 
leys ; perhaps, by troubles brought on other members of 
the family, and on himself, by the foolishness and wicked- 
ness of Anthony Copley ^^^ it was some time delayed. 

The Copleys though obliged to alienate more of their 
estates on account of fines and amercements were still well 
off in this world's goods. Father Thomas now in his teens 
was given such a training as a Catholic who thought more 
of his conscience than advancement before men could allow 
his offspring. Most likely tutors of undoubted loN'alty to 
Mother Church were sele6led, as it is too much of a risk to 
expose the faith of the young to the chilling influence of 
teachers who have a false religion. Probabh^ some priest, 
some Jesuit Father, who before the world passed for a gen- 
tleman of refined tastes and seemh' behavior, but at heart 
was thirsting for souls, ready and eager to undergo an igno- 
minious death for their sake, was the guiding spirit of 
Thomas Cople\' during his earK' }'ears. And there was 
need of that heroism, that spirit of martyrs, that unflinching 
self-sacrifice which we consider the glor\- of the earl)- 
Church. Plots and counterplots, dissensions among the 
members of the true fold, ill-fated attempts, like that of the 
Gunpowder Plot, on the life of the sox'creign, the consequent 
persecution that followed — all these trials were the faithful 
to endure in the days of James. Glorious the renown of 
those who stood firm. Father Copley spent his earh* }'ears 
amid such scenes. And that they were not unfruitful let 
his entrance into, and after work for, the Society bear wit- 
ness. His joining the Jesuits was, no doubt, the rebound of 
an heroic nature, influenced by God's grace; still the bright 
example set by his sisters had its effe6l. Despising the 

<') This perfidious wretch seems to hare been one of the false brethren so 
common in those days ; a traitor to his religion he hesitated not in the least 
to betray his friends and kindred to gain favor or, most of all, money. We 
shall give at the end of this history an account of his misdoings which may 
throw some light upon the condition of Catholics in those times. 



A Founder of Maryland. 35 

riches of the worltl/'^ he withdrew to the continent to pre- 
pare himself for [greater things. His sisters had ah'eady 
t^one thither to dedicate themselves to the service of God. 
St. Monica's Chronicle .speaks of the journey ofthe.se youn^^ 
ladies from England to Belgium and the mishaps by the 
way. We quote from it the leading fafts to show the spirit 
which animated the Copley family. 

In 1610 Mary, the eldest daughter of Wiliam Copley of 
Gatton. and Helen, her sister, two years younger, "being 
now of an age to undertake any state," says St. Monica's 
Chronicle, determined to pass over to the continent and be- 
come nuns. 

Having relations at the Benediftine Convent at Brussels, 
they at first thought of going there, but hearing that their 
great aunt, the Prioress, and the English nuns had left St. 
Ursula's at Louvain and established in 1609 St. Monica's 
Convent of English Canonesses of St. Augustine in the 
same cit}', the}' changed their intentions and determined to 
join that house. They informed their mother of their de- 
sign and she acceded to it, but begged them not to take 
leave of her nor tell her when they were going. 

A widow lady whom they knew being about to go over 
in the suite of one of the ambassadors, they repaired to 
London to join her and took lodgings at an inn in South- 
wark. There was great excitement in London at the time, 
as news had just been received of the assassination of Henry 
the fourth of France ; many Catholic houses were searched. 
7\nd the two young ladies got into a religious discussion 
with the inn-keeper's wife, who gave information of her sus- 
picious lodgers to the nearest justice of the peace. They 
had with them an aged nurse who had come out of Spain 
with them, and a Flemish man-servant. 

That night just as they were going to bed, the justice and 
many men came and demanded admittance ; the frightened 
girls at first refused to open the door, but as they threatened 
to break it open, — "taking their books and money for the 

(') William Copley, the father of Thomas, had sold ^(ersbam Park, as we 
have said already. The transaction was for the benefit of some greedy Scottish 
favorite of the Kinjr. 



/ 



36 Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

voyage, they got into bed, leaving out one vain book of 
Virgil which was taken away." So lying still in bed they 
desired their nurse to open the door. There came into the 
room man\' men who drew open the curtains ; the justice 
of the peace sat down by the bedside and asked of what re- 
ligion they were. The eldest answered that they were well 
known in Southwark to be recusants; for their family had 
one manor and many houses there. He asked if the\- would 
go to church, to which Mary replied "no, they would not be 
dissemblers ; he then asked Helen the same question and 
received a similar answer. He did not distrust them, but 
put their man, who la)- in another chamber, in prison. The\' 
sent for their mother who got them released and went with 
them to the water side, which she had not intended to do, 
and their man was released through his ambassador. 

At St. Omer's, they were received with great kindness by 
their relation, Dr. Redmond and at Loux^ain by Dr. Ca.*sar 
Clements, their mother's own cousin, Dean of St. Gudule. 
The Mother at Louxain rejoiced over them, saying: "it is 
now time that I go to m\- home, for I ha\'e two to lea\e 
in my place;" she died ten days afterwards. 

"The two Copleys' eldest brother came over in 161 1 to 
pass his philosoph}' in this place (Lou\ain); and boarded 
with oiu' Fathers (their Chaplains) ; some time after their 
jjrofession he himself entered into the Society of Jesus, lea\- 
ing his inheritance unto his second brother, William, taking 
our Lord for his better portion." 

Chapter ix. 

Entrance of Thomas Copley into the Society. 

In 1604 a noble Spanish lady had left twelve thousand 
crowns to build a house in which English novices of the 
Society of Jesus might be trained; — a mansion which had 
belonged to the Knights of Malta and thence called "St. 
John's" was bought in Louva.in two years afterwards — and 
besides the original purpose young gentlemen were receixed 
for the higher studies. Thither came as Re6lor, in the very 



A Founder of Maryland. 37 

year that Thomas Copley entered the Society, one of the 
most remarkable men which that age, fertile in greatness, 
produced, who concealed under the alias of "John Thom- 
son," a high name and romantic career. His real name was 
John Gerard and his life is said by an English periodical "to 
be equal to anything which has been published since the 
days of Defoe.' '^^^ 

Born of an ancient Catjiolic family of Lancashire, still ex- 
tant and still Catholic, in the early part of Elizabeth's reign 
he joined the Society before his twenty-fifth year, when he 
at once returned to England and became the most aftive 
and formidable of those champions who defied the warrants 
of the Privy Council, and the search of the pursuivants. Of 
distinguished appearance and fine manners, familiar with the 
usages of the best society, as much at home with the hounds 
and hawks of my lord, as in the withdrawing-room of my 
lad)', he so won the hearts of all men that he was enabled 
to win them to the lo\'e of God. 

The elegant gentleman ^^^ "attired costh' and defensibly in 
buff leather garnished with siKer lace, satin doublet and col- 
ored \elvet hose with correspondent cloak and gilded dag- 
ger," with whom Sir Everard Digby was so fascinated, that 
before he discovered Gerard's true chara6ler, he wished 
him to marry his sister — gave instru6lions as he sat with his 
catechumen at the card-table and heard confessions return- 
ing from the hunting-field ; his converts were of all classes 
from serving men to earls ; the widow of Essex was his 
penitent, and he almost won to a better life the beautiful 
lady Rich, "the Stella" of Sir Philip Sidney, but most of all 
his influence was felt b}' the young. 

"At least ten young men of birth and fortune left England 
and joined the Societ}' of Jesus before the close of P21iza- 
beth's reign, and in every instance we can trace his influ- 
ence," says Jessop, and since the i:)ublication of Foley's 
"Record" the number has been considerably increased. He 

0) Notes and Queries for 1881. 

('-') Description of his arrest — MSS. at Hatfield. 



38 Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

seems to luu'c inspired the deepest attachment and rever- 
ence ; wealth and position were exerted as his safe-guard, 
but his best prote6lion was his deep insight into the hearts 
of others, a far-sighted sagacity in which audacity and pru- 
dence were singularly combined ; he divined the treachery 
of the false brother and eluded the snares of the priest-taker 
with an address and coolness which Carson, in his encoun- 
ters with men scarcely less savage, never surpassed. He 
was, however, captured at last and thrown into the Tower, 
where he was repeatedly and vainly tortured by Topclifife ; 
he could not be won to betray his friends. When scarcely 
recovered he gained the good will of his keeper and, with 
the assistance of two devoted la}'-brothers of his order, made 
his escape from that prison, and recommenced his labors, 
which were brought to an abrupt close by that mysterious 
puzzle in history, known as "the Gunpowder Plot," for 
which his convert and intimate friend. Sir Everard Digby, 
was executed. Gerard himself was accused of being privy 
to it, but while the pursuivants were close upon his track 
and his fellow priests were under arrest, he had letters in 
his own handwriting, denying his knowledge of it, dropped 
in the streets of London, and made his escape to Spain, and 
soon after to Rome, where, being appointed penitentiary at 
St. Peter's, he resided some years. Robert Parsons, then 
approaching the end of his labors, was there, and to these 
two, the most eminent Englishmen of their order, the out- 
look in their own country must have seemed dark indeed ; 
for now the succession of the Stuart line was assured and 
the future, to the Catholics, under beings as subservient to 
the Puritans as James had proved and as bitter as his heir. 
Prince Henry, was known to be, must have extended like 
an arid desert marked only by the bones of the dead. 

We believe that Parsons and Gerard then first conceived 
that design, which, though not carried out until more than 
twenty years afterwards, was patiently adhered to, a scheme 
which seems to have first originated with the father of the 
latter, and of which we owe our knowledge to Father Par- 
sons himself; he says, "Sir Thomas Gerard, father of Father 



A Founder of Maryland. 39 

John, petitioned Queen Elizabeth to be allowed to colonize 
the northern part of America, but the projeft failed ovvin^ 
to the coldness of the Catholics." Their reluctance to en- 
gage in an enterprise of that kind in an entirely unknown 
land where, as yet, there was not planted a single foot of 
their nation, is not surprising; now the success of the plan- 
tation in Virginia was certain ; why might not that old plan 
be resumed, a grant be obtained which will empower Catho- 
lic Englishmen to win from savage nature a new home in 
the New World ; w here, under other skies and b\- strange 
streams, they ma\' dare to praftise the old faith as it was 
pra6lised e\'erywhere less than a hundred years ago. There 
too ma\- the red men. whom Segura and others of Ours 
gave their lives to gain, be won to christianit}^ and civiliza- 
tion ; 'tis a mighty continent ; who knows but in a few hun- 
dred )'ears the cross, aspiring heavenward, may rise over 
the shrines of a hundred cities richer than Antwerp or Ven- 
ice ;. and venerated prelates from great empires not yet 
dreamed of, may be called to Rome to Council or Conclave ? 
If such were the xisions of those far-sighted Jesuits they 
have been fully realized. Unfortunately the records of the 
Societ}'' lost during its suppression renders proof impossible, 
and we can only judge from the result. 

In 1610 Robert Parsons died; in 1611 Gerard passed to 
Louvain to train others to tread in his footsteps ; before his 
arrixal there, among the first novices to enter St. John's was 
one destined to play an important part in the new design, 
Andrew White, a secular j^riest and experienced missionary, 
w ho liaxing been sent into exile in 1606, had come the next 
year as an asjMrant to the Order. He seems to have known 
the elder Garnett and corresponded with both Parsons and 
Gerard, though he left Louvain before the arrival of the lat- 
ter, being sent back to England in 1610. He was professed 
in 1619, and seems to have returned to the continent whence 
he was called to join the Maryland expedition. 

We find that in 161 5 William Coi)ley, younger brother of 
Father Thomas, had letters of naturalization granted him, he 
having been born in the dominions of the King of Spain ; 
the next year he was married to Anne Skelton, whose father 



40 Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

settled on her Ongar and other property in Essex; Gatton, 
Colley, and the Maze were settled on the issue of the mar- 
riage. 

Before this, Thomas Copley had probably been admitted 
to holy orders and had transferred his rights as heir to his 
brother, being then of legal age, having been born in 1594 
or 1595, and was no doubt pursuing his ecclesiastical stud- 
ies at Liege, the house of novices having been removed 
from Louvain to that city, Gerard still remaining Re6tor. 

On "the 20th of August, 1610, died Magdalen, wife of 
William Copley, Sr." — the first record of the family that oc- 
curs in the Parish register ; she was buried in Gatton church 
where Aubrey saw her tomb and others belonging "to the 
gentile family of Copley." 

The parliamentary returns from that i)lace seem to have 
been anything but satisfa6lory to the House of Commons, 
which had already begun to manifest that spirit which rose 
so high during the next reign ; in 162 1 the Committee of 
Privileges report that "John Hollis, son of Lord Haughton, 
and Sir Henry Britton, both papists, were returned for the 
borough of Gatton, through the influence of Wx. Copley, 
owner of , almost all the town; that Sir Thomas Gresham 
and Sir Thomas Bludder were chosen by the freeholders. 
The House declared the former election void, and returned 
the last." About this time William Copley of Gatton find- 
ing "it not good to li\-e alone," or unable to withstand the 
fashion of the period, to marry as often as circumstances 
would permit, though fifty-seven years old, contra6led a sec- 
ond marriage with Margaret, sister of Bartholomew Fro- 
monds, of East Cheam, Surrey. Iler Aunt Jane had been 
the wife of the celebrated Dr. Dee ; her brother was a 
Catholic gentlemen who seems from D. S. P. to haxc been 
frequently in trouble for entertaining jjriests, and who regu- 
larly paid twenty pounds a month for recusancy. 

Manning says that William Coi)ley "prevailed on his son 
by a former marriage to join with him in settling Leigh 
Place on his second wife for her jt)inture, and on his issue 
by her, which was accordingly done." 

If William was the son referred to, he ilid not long siu'- 



A Founder of Maryland. 41 

vive his disinterested art, but died on the 5th (jf July, and 
was buried on the 6th, 1622, in Gatton Church, leavin^i;- two 
daughters, Mary aged three years, and Anne, one year old. 
It seems that their grandfather disputed the deed of settle- 
ment, but it was confirmed by the Court of Wards — and he 
had the mortification of knowing that the main part of his 
inheritance would pass from his family through these fe- 
males, instead of descending in the right line, and to a son 
whom his second wife had lately borne him. 

Chapter x. 

Father Copley s Return to England. 

About this time there lix'cd in England a man named 
John Gee, who had taken orders in the Church of England ; 
his^^^ enemies said he "had cozened a widow out of a large 
sum of monc}', forsook the countr\', and going abroad either 
became, or pretended to become a Catholic." He after- 
wards returned to the established church, obtained prefer- 
ment and published "The Foot out of the Snare" between 
1623 and 1624, in which he gi\cs a list of priests and phy- 
sicians in Eondon. To him we are indel^ted for the infor- 
mation that "Father Copley, Junior, one that hath newly 
taken orders and come from beyond seas" was among the 
number. ^-^ His old Re6lor, Fatlier John Gerard, had been 
recalled to Rome in 1622 from Eiege, and was now con- 
fessor at the English College ; and as there had probably 
been a general change. Father Copley may have been 
sent home to arrange about tlie ])ortion reserved to him, 
which the death of his brother and the new domestic ties of 
his father rendered necessary. 

It is not likely that his real ]M)sition was as well known 
to everx'one as it was to Gee ; he probabl)' passed in society 
for a young gentleman whose peculiar tastes intluced him 
to forego matrimon\' and to reside mostly abroad : — whilst 
he was protected from the "evil crew" of j)ursuivants by his 

(•) Marden, a fellow clergyman of Established ( luncli, in D. S. P. 

<'' In lfi32 Kev. \\ . ( 'larkc writing to tlie Clergy .Vgent at Rome, gives a list 
of the regular and secular priests in England ; we find in it tliis entry : 
"Jesuits out of prison, Thomas Copley, etc." 



42 Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

birth in Spain and by Gondomar, then all-powerful at the 
English Court. He had another friend there also, his cousin 
George Gage, son of Gage of Haling ; George was a priest 
like himself and had been an aftive agent in promoting the 
marriage of the heir apparent with the Spanish Infanta ; he 
had also been employed b)' James on a mission to the Pope; 
Sir George Calvert, the Secretary of State, known to be most 
anxious to see it accomplished, no doubt assisted at the in- 
terviews of the King and that young ecclesiastic ; perhaps 
•he had introduced him to his notice ; for, from his position, 
the history and members of the great Catholic families must 
have been known to him. George Gage, though prothono- 
tary for the See of Rome and trusted with important state 
secrets by his own King, \\as a young man at this time ; he 
was probably older than his brother Sir Henr)^ who was 
born in 1597, but he seems from his subsequent career to 
have merited the confidence reposed in him. He was now 
in London with his Cousin Thomas Copley ; it is not im- 
probable that the two, ^\•ho had so much in common may 
have recognized each other sometimes strangely disguised, 
or, wearing ruffs and rapiers with hawks on their wrists, may 
have ridden as gay gallants to Gatton to tell its owner how 
His Highness fared in Spain. 

The necessity of caution was so paramount in those evil 
days and so many stratagems were necessar\', that it is al- 
most impossible to identify a priest when he appears in an)- 
record. It is hoped that Foley's "List of real and assumed 
names," soon to appear, may throw some light on the "b}-" 
names of Father Thomas Copley; it is almost too much to 
expect to be informed what became of him during those 
years during which we lose sight of him. He may ha\x' 
l)een doing humble duty in some remote countr\' district, 
liearing the confessions and sharing the life of cottagers, or 
have been the honored guest of those high in place and, 
taking his j)roper position imder another a])peIlation, may 
ha\e been on intimate terms with the justice who would 
ha\e arrested, or the judge who would have hung the auda- 
cious Jesuit "who went about to seduce the King's subje6ls 
from the church as by law established," He may haxc been 



A Founder of Maryland. 43 

employed in some house of the Society on the Continent ; 
and this idea is borne out by a <j^Hmpse we get of him from 
D. S. P. — probably an intercepted letter from Francis Plow- 
den, head of a well known famih^ of Shropshire, and brother 
of Thomas Plowden, S. J., dated March 2nd, 1628, to 
Thomas Copley, relating to a bond in which Plowden had 
joined with his late brother William Copley, for four hun- 
dred pounds to Drue Lovett, and in which Sir Richard 
Munshull had some interest. Plowden seemed to desire 
Copley's intercession with the latter gentleman. 

Drue Lovett was one of three brothers, all goldsmiths or 
bankers, and Catholics, who were extensively employed by 
their co-religionists in settling the fines with which their 
estates were charged, and as securit)' for them in the trou- 
bles to which they were constantl)^ exposed. Perhaps this 
document was found at the Jesuits' house in Clerkenwell, 
from which man}' papers were carried off and eight priests 
arrested the 15th of that month; and this seems probable 
from the faft of Thomas Plowden, or Salisbury, being one of 
them, and that the letter was captured in transitu. Here, 
also was arrested Robert Beaumont, whose real name was 
Jamison, a nephew of Father Gerard, and Thomas Poulton, 
an uncle of Ferdinand Poulton "^'^ who was subsequently to 
be Thomas Copley's companion in the New World. They 
were tried and one of them was condemned to death, but 
they were all released through the influence of Sir Lionel 

")The Poulton family had several oi" its members in tlie Society. Father 
Ferdinand Twhose name in Confirmation was John) nlhis John ISrooks, or 
I'.rock. >i}ins .Morgan, was the -son of Franei.s Poulton and Ann Morgan, in 
tlie Maryland eatalosne lu' appears as .lohn r>rock (wrr Morgan). He had 
an uncle" named Ferdinand I'oulton who was at one time a member of the So- 
ciety, but left about 162.), and was known in England under the aluia of .lohu 
Morgan. The Father Ferdiiianil I'oulton of Maryland was born in Hucking- 
hamshire in Kiul or 3 ; he was educated at St. < )mer's and entered the English 
College at Rome for higher .studies in 1611) as .Fohn Urookes, aged is ; he en- 
lered'the Society in 1G22. lie was at St. Omer's in 16;?.;, at Watten 1631); 
was Sui)erior in'Marvland under the aZws of .lohn llrock for .several years, 
beginnintr with 16.SS1 In KUo (lOSejit.) (iov. Calvert specially summoned 
him as Ferdinand I'oulton, Esipiire, of St. Mary's Counly, to the Assembly. 
lie was accidentally shot whilst crossing the St. .Mary's river, .June .')th, 1611. 
says an old cataloir'ue, though I'.r. I'oley has .Inly .''•th. Fr. Poulton was pro- 
fessed of the four vows, Dec. •'^th, 163.>. 

There seems to have been a great intimacy between the Calverts anil Poul- 
lons. I find that Williem I'oulton <t//,(..s- "Saehervall, a secular priest atirl 
brother of Father Ferdinand, was chaplain to Mary La<ly Somerset, a daugh- 
ter of Lord .Vrundell of Wardour and sister-in-law to Cecil Calvert Lord 
Baltimore. 



44 ■^?)^ ^f Father Thomas. Copley. 

Cranfield who had been, or was in business witli Giles Poul- 
ton, anotlier brother of the priest, the Earl of Dorset, son-in- 
law of Cranfield, bringing the warrant for that purpose to 
Newgate. 

Chapter xi. 

Father Copley in Maryland. 

On the 29th of Sept. 1633 a ship known as the Ark at- 
tended by a pinnace, the Dove, was lying at Tilbury Hope 
waiting for Edward Watkins, "the searcher of London." an 
official who seems to have united the duties of a custom- 
house officer and a notary public, to come on board and ad- 
minister the oath of allegiance to the colonists. He certi- 
fies that it ^\'as taken b}- a hundred and twenty-eight indi- 
viduals ; unfortunateK' it can ne\er be known h(^w far Mr. 
Watkins was reliable, or if it were not possible for him to 
confuse a broatl piece slipped in his hand with the recjuired 
attestation, an hallucination not unknown in much later 
times. 

As the oath was such that Catholics refused to take it, 
only the Protestants who had joined the expedition with a 
few lay-members of the older faith may have done so.^^^ 
Lord Baltimore states that three, hundred and twenty per- 
sons had sailed in those ships; the remainder may ha\'e 
come on board after Watkins' departure, as it is known Frs. 
White and Altham and the la\--brother Gerxase did. Fr. 
Thomas Copley was not with them ; the year before, in 
1632, he was professed as we learn from St. Monica's Chron- 
icle ; w liere he was stationed at that time does not appear, 
but two months after the departure of the Ark and the Do\e 
and while they were in mid-ocean, he was in London, and 
presented, on the first of December, a petition t(^ the King 
x\hich ma)' be found in D. S. P. for 1633. 

"Petitioner is an alien born and, therefore, he conceives 
that for his religion, he is not liable to be troubled by the 
laws of this realm, yet fearing he may be arrested b)- some 
messengers w^hile following occasions which concern his 
father's and his own estates, he prays his Majesty to refer 
(1) Letter to Wentworth. 



A Founder of Maryland. 45 

this petition to one of his principal secretaries who may sii^- 
nif}- to messengers to forbear to troul:)le i)etitioner. Under- 
written refers to Sec. Wintlebank to inform himself of the 
truth of the abo\'e petition and take such cause for petitioner 
as nia\' be fit." 

h^)r thirty-five years the owners of the Copley estates had 
been in exile ; the estates had been sequestered and had 
thus been preserxed intaft, instead of being sold piece-meal 
to pay fines and amercements ; so that the family retained 
a larger sliare of wealth than others of their faith ; and 
Father Thomas had, probabl}', when he relinciuished his 
rights as the heir, been allotted an ample portion for his 
support. This portion he was now engaged in selling and 
in the purchase of goods and the transportation of men to 
Maryland. He may ha\'e been interested also in assisting 
Lord Baltimore to fit out the expedition which had just 
sailed, for though Father White in his "relation" says that 
nobleman bore the whole charge, it is apparent he was mis- 
taken ; on the tenth of January, 1634, Baltimore writes to 
Wentworth, Lord Stafford: "I have sent a hopeful colony 
to Maryland with fair expeftation of good success, however 
without an\' danger of any great prejudice unto myself, in 
respect that others are joined with me in the ad\enture." It 
is certain that on his arrival in Maryland Copley claimed, 
not onl\- the nineteen men he had brought w ith him, but 
twenty-eight who had come before, including White and 
Altham, making fort3'-eight in all, which entitled him to ten 
thousand acres of land which he took uj). St. Inigoes near 
the old city of St. Mary's, and St. Thomas' Manor in Charles 
Count)- formed part of this domain and are still in posses- 
sion of the Society, the oldest religious foundations in the 
United States — albeit the founder is forgotten, and are the 
mother houses of Catholicity in this land. 

The position Father Copley occupied was a peculiar one ; 
though a professed Father of the Society, he retained his 
worldly rank also, by which he was recognized both in Eng- 
land and Maryland, and he had either powerful friends at 
Court, or the King must have been aware that he was one 



46 Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

of Lord Baltimore's associates when he s^ave him the fol- 
low iny," prote6lion, lately discovered at Annapolis : ^'^ 

"Whereas Thomas Copley, gentleman, an alien, is a recu- 
sant and ma\' be subje6l to be troubled for his religion ; and 
for as much as we are well satisfied of the conditions aiul 
ciualities of the said Thomas Copley and of his loyalty and 
obedience towards us, we hereby will and require you and 
every one of you whom it may concern, to permit the said 
Thomas Cople}- freely and quietly to attend in any place, 
and go about and follow his occupation, without molesta- 
tion or troubling him b)' an\' means whatsoever for matters 
of religion, or the persons or places of those unto whom he 
shall resort, and this shall be your warrant in his behalf 
(lixenat our palace of Westminster the 5 th of Dec. in the loth 
year of our reign (1633)." It was ten years before the civil 
wars and the King's name was still a tower of strength ; 
under this ample protection Coplex' could go and come as 
he pleased, colleft his men, bu}- his goods, and it ma}- be, 
"follow his occupation" in more important matters, admin- 
istering spiritual and bodih- comfort to his less fortunate 
co-religionists, confined in the noisome prisons, while the 
vile brood of "messengers" could only snarl at him from a 
distance. He may ha\'c resided at Gatton going up to Lon- 
don as his business required his attention. 

A new family had sprung up at Gatton, John and a 
younger half brother, Roger, only two years old at the set- 
tlement of Maryland. His two orphan nieces resided with 
a guardian appointed b}' their mother, who was buried in 
(iatton church in 1632. There was little to retain him in 
England save the command of his Superiors; but there he 
remained until 1637. In the spring of that year he took 
sliip for Maryland, bringing with him John Knowles, an en- 
thusiastic young ecclesiastic from Staffordshire, and nineteen 
la}-men whom he "transported ;" that is, whose passage he 
paid, on condition that they remained in his service for a 
specified period. That these men were, as a rule. Catholics 
there can be nf) doubt. At a time when it would ha\'e been 
an aft of suicide for a Jesuit to disclose himself to the aver- 
(1) In Neill's Founders of Maryland. 



A Founder of Maryland. 47 

ao'c Protestant, it is not likely he would ha\e souL;"ht re- 
cruits anion^" those who would continue in the New World 
the severities which drove him from the Old ; and an exami- 
nation of the names shows that many were identical with 
those in lists of recusants, with those who were set do\\n for 
"fines and amercements" and "gi\'en away ;" all such were 
known in those d.aj's as "papists" to pursuivants and frreedy 
coiu'tiers, and they are so regarded b}' modern readers who 
have toiled through many \olumes of State papers. The 
men thus transported felt no shame in the title, of "servant" 
which then bore another meaning; their poverty was often 
to them a sign of steadfastness to the faith ; and it were bet- 
ter to exchange a few years of labor in the fields of the 
Fathers with the promise of peace and plenty beyond, than 
fall, a soldier of f(M-tune, in the Low Countries. 

In tlie July f)f this year, whilst the ship that bore Thomas 
Cople\' still breasted the Atlantic, his old teacher, Father 
John Gerard, who liad been f(M- man\' }-ears confessor in the 
English College, died in Rome — an aged man whose wis- 
dom, zeal and sufferings intitled him to gi\x' counsel to 
those Superiors who selected the laborers for Maryland. It 
is probable that he, with Father Fitzherbert, chose them. 
White, Althani, and Gerxase were known to Gerard, having 
shared the dangers of the English Mission thirty years be- 
fore with him. W'illiam Copley had been the intimate friend 
of Fitzherbert in Spain, whilst Ferdinand Poulton was his 
relative and the convert of Gerard. Richard, second son of 
Sir Thomas Gerard of Bryn, Lancashire, one of "the gentle- 
men" pilgrims of 1 634, was great nephew to Father Gerard, 
who thus lived long enough to rejoice over the success of 
the expedition ; the one ra\' that came to cheer the hearts 
of English Catholics after long years of gloom. On the^'^ 
<Sth of August, 1637, Thomas Copley, Esquire, entered his 
claim for six thousand acres of land due by condition of 
transportation, for thirty-one persons he had sent out, and 
registered the names of Andrew White, John Altham, Thos. 
Gerva.se, Thomas Stratham, Matthias Sou.sa, Mr. Rogers, 
John Bryant, Michael Hervey, Henry Bishop, John Thorn- 
<i> Annapolis Records, 



48 life of FatJier I'homas Copley. 

ton, Thomas Clarenton, Richard Duke, John Thompson, 
John Holhs, Robert SjMiipson, John Hilhard, John Hill.Jolin 
Ashmore, Thomas Hatch, Le\visJFi.miionds, Mary JenninL^s. 
Christopher Charnock, Richard Liisthead, Robert Shirle\\ 

It also appears that in 1634 several gentlemen of the ex- 
l)edition, who probably returned to luit^land soon after, as- 
sii^ned to the Fathers of the Societ}' the men they had 
brought out. John Saunders assis^ned Thomas Hody,"es, 
Richard Cole, John Elkin, Richard Neville, and John Marl- 
borough ; Richard Gerard assit;ned to them, Thos. Munns, 
Thomas Grigston, Robert P2dwards, John Ward, and Wil- 
liam Edwin. Edward and Frederic Wintour assigned Wm. 
Clarke, John Price, White John Price, 'and Francis Rabc- 
nett. Matthias Sousa was a negro, havmg been added whilst 
the Ark and Dove wintered in the W'est Indies. Hervey, 
Hollis, Hilliard, Asl\more, Fromonds, Charnock, Shirley, 
Cole, Neville, Edwards, may htive been cadets of well known 
Catholic gentry bearing those names. Lewis Fromonds 
was doubtless of the family of East Cheam, in Surrey, to 
which Thomas Copley's stepmother belonged ; several mem- 
bers appear from its pedigree which was prolific in \-ounger 
branches, to have borne the name of Lewis, which was after- 
wards gi\'en to a nephew of the priest. From a further 
memorandum in the Annapolis Record "Thomas Cople)', 
Esquire, demandeth four thousand acres for transj)orting 
into this Pro\ince himself and twenty able men to plant and 
inhabit" — the names appended are his own, John Knowles, 
Thomas Dawson, Richard Cox, Robert ,Sedgrave, Luke 
Gardiner, Thomas Mathew, John Machin, James Campbell, 
James Compton, Walter King, George Wliite, John Tuo, 
Philip Spurr, Henry Hooper, John Smith, William Empson, 
Nicholas Russell, Edward Tatersell, Thomas Smith, Henry 
James. 

It is probable that Luke Gardiner w^as of a famil)- in Sur- 
rey, a branch of the Gardiners of Norfolk, to which belonged 
Fathers Humphre\' and Bernard Gardiner of the Society, 
who were relatives of Thomas Cornwallys, the Maryland 
Commissioner. Gardiner also at this time demanded land 
as having brought out his father, mother and several other 
members of his family ; he took up a' plantation on St. 
Clement's bay and was ancestor to a family which still sup- 
plies worthy members to the Church of God. 



A Founder of Maryland. 49 



Chapter xii. 
Events at St. Marys City. 

Father Copley at first resided at St. Inigoes ; ^'^ soon after 
liis arrival an epidemic disease, supposed by some to have 
been the yellow fever, decimated the little colony. Gervase, 
the faithful la) -brother, who had come with White and Al- 
tham, died, and Copley's companion, John Knowles, an ar- 
dent young aspirant, succumbed six weeks after landing. 
The labors of the surviving Fathers must have been severe 
and unremitting ; they faltered not in their duty, and the 
Relation says, "not one Catholic died without receiving the 
last rites of the Church." They journeyed from house to 
house, often many miles distant, through the thick pine for- 
ests, finding their way by notches on the trees, no breath of 
air reaching them through the interminable branches, or 
by slow canoes when the rays of the sultry autumn sun 
withered the human frame. If they made their way at night, 
the swamp air was loaded with death-dealing miasma. Many 
a brave and faithful soul, who, having greatly endured at 
home, now perished in the attempt to win in the New 
World a home for his ancient faith ; — "building better than 
the\' knew," their ashes unmarked by stone or name rest in 
the old grave-yards of St. Inigoes, St. Thomas', or Newtown, 
but ever)' Angelus bell, throughout this broad land, is an 

echo of that they rang — and their proclamation of toleration "tti^L^ 

widening with the years grew into that great declaration (fr/ftt/il^/i/t'^^^*^' 
which was issued a hundred and twenty-seven years later. • ^ ' 

In November 1637 "the St. Marc" arrived in the port of 
St. Mary's, having on board "for Mr. Copley, clothes, hatch- 
ets, knives and hoes to trade with the Indians for beaver." 
(1) That is, in the Residence at St. Mary's City. 



56 Life of Pather Thomas Coptey. 

The sale of these articles brought the Fathers in conta6l 
with the natives — enabled them to win their friendship and 
acquire their language. A catechism in an extinft Amer- 
ican tongue sent from Maryland by the early missionaries 
still exists at Rome to attest their labors. John Lewger 
and his family came out in the St. Marc, and Robert Clarke 
who had charge of Father Copley's goods ; he is once men- 
tioned as "a boy, servant to Mr. Copley," but this must have 
been a way of expressing that he was a young man, for he was 
summoned the following January to the Assembly as "Rob- 
ert Clarke, gentleman," a title which never would have been 
given him unless he had a right to bear it. He seems to 
have a6led for some time as agent or intendant for the So- 
ciety, became chief surveyor of the Colony, married the 
widow of Nicholas Causin, a French emigrant of some dis- 
tinflion, and was a prominent member of the Colony. Some 
light seems to have been thrown on his origin by St. Moni- 
ca's Chronicle, which states that "Mark Clarke, a Catholic 
gentleman of Vanhouse, Surrey, died, leaving four orphan 
children, two boys and two girls. To prevent the girls from 
being brought up Protestants they were sent to their rela- 
tive Mrs. Bedingfield in Flanders," and in 1632 became in- 
mates of the convent where were Father Copley's sisters. 
The fate of their brothers is not stated, but it is not likely 
they were neglected by their friends ; they were natives of 
the same county, perhaps neighbors of the Copleys, and a 
recruit for the Maryland enterprise may have been found in 
one of them. Governor Leonard Calvert convened an As- 
sembly, composed of the freemen of the Colony, to meet at 
St. Mary's City on the 25th of January, 1638. Vain now 
would be the attempt to locate the precise spot where this 
legislative body met ; the town of St. Mary's has entirely 
passed away ; a few broken bricks and shattered potsherds 
turned up by the ploughshare are the only corroboration of 
the tradition of its existence. The State House, which how- 
ever must have been erefled at a subsequent period, was af- 
ter the removal of the seat of government to Annapolis, 



A Founder of Maryland. ^i 

pulled down and its materials used to constru6l a small 
Episcopal church which stands hard by. Governor Calvert's 
own house, construfted probably of oaken logs, with floor- 
ini^ of the same roughh' smoothed with the adze, was most 
likely the place of meeting. It is easy to imagine that rude 
hall hung with skins of deer and panther, pieces of defensive 
armor and a few sacred pi6lures while above the presiding 
officer, the Governor himself, the escutcheon of the Lord 
Proprietor blazed in sable and gold over the founders of 
Maryland. 

Leonard Calvert, born the same year with Milton, but 
thirty-two years old at that time when the Assembly met, 
was one of those men who only .seeking to do the right un- 
con.sciously win fame. The Marshall was 'Robert Percy, 
gentleman ;' there are strong grounds for believing that he 
was the eldest son of Thomas Percy, a chief conspirator of 
the Gunpowder Plot. John Lewger of Trinity College, Ox- 
ford, a man whose mind had been sorely tossed by winds of 
opinion, who had xibrated from the Established Church to 
Catholicity-, and had turned back again to his first faith with 
Chillingworth, but only to abandon it and to die later a 
martyr of charity, ministering to the sufferers of the London 
plague, took his place as a law-maker in the Assembly, 
Close by was Thomas Cornwallys, Counsellor and Commis- 
sioner, of sufficient wealth but troubled about many matters, 
for to his strong sense and clear judgment was submitted 
the greater part of the affairs of the settlement. His family 
held high rank in Norfolk, and he "transported" to the 
Colony such men as Cuthbert Fenwick and the two sons of 
Sir Robert Rookwood, grandsons of that Ambrose Rook- 
wood of Staningfield, whose barbarous execution in 1607 
had been a speftacle for the London mob. 

Here too was Robert Wintour, commander of the little 
pinnace, the Dove, on the first voyage. Sprung from a 
great sea- faring race and nephew of the loyal Marquis of 
Worcester, he had played many parts ; had conferred with 
the Pope on ecclesiastical matters and had steered into Lon- 
don harbor the ship Black Lion, to the horror of an othodox 



^2 Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

informer, who thought that its "eighteen pieces of ordnance' 
in show" boded no good when in the hands of an arch-pa- 
pist, whose sister was a Benediftine nun at Brussels and his 
cousin, Lady Mary Percy, abbess of the convent there. 

Eldest of three brothers who came on the first voyage, he 
seems to have been the only one that remained, and had, in 
the last five years, braved many an Atlantic storm as he 
passed and repassed between England and Maryland, being 
a sea-captain as had been his ancestors for generations. The 
head of the house, Sir John Wintour, a noted partisan, a6led 
during the English civil wars very much the part of Mosby 
in ours ; his mansion of Lidney was bravely defended by 
Lady Wintour, a daughter of the "belted Will Howard" 
sung by Scott, against the Parliamentry forces, and near it 
fell a brother of Sir John, with a musket ball in his brain, 
either Edward or Frederick Wintour, who, like Richard 
Gerard, turned back from the furrow ere it was well begun ; 
surely it were better to have abided in that land which alone 
promised peace to English Catholics, than to perish thus 
for the faithless Stuart. Now the labors of Robert Wintour 
are nearly over ; he is often too ill during the session to ap- 
pear, or to cross the frozen stream between his own planta- 
tion and St. Mary's, and a few months after the adjournment 
he died, as did another sailor, Captain Richard Lowe, of the 
Ark, also present at that time. One other of the origi- 
nal (^^ pilgrims was there, John Metcalfe of the great York- 
shire family of that name, numerous about Kipling where 
lived the Calverts, a man well educated according to that 
time, for when he was afterwards called upon in court for 
his testimony in a divorce case ; he gave it delicately in 
Latin, as one might who had "made his humanities" at 
Douay or St. Omer's. 

There was Jerome Hawley, commissioner and cousin to 
Lord Baltimore, second son of a family long established at^^^ 
Brentford in Middlesex. They were Catholic recusants in 
the second year of James I. Hawley had sought to gather 

W Peacock's List of Recusants in Yorkshire. 
WDodd's Hist, of the Church. 



A Founder of Maryland. 53 

grapes from court-favor and had found but thorns, having 
been committed to the CUnk prison in 161 5 for indiscreetly- 
repeating some remarks of Lady Lake, touching the King's 
resemblance to an old woman. Joining the Maryland ad- 
venture he had been one of those chosen to return to Eng- 
land to report its success. On the nth of Dec, 1635, 
Governor Hervey of Virginia was charged before the Privy 
Council with ^'^ favoring the popish religion, "Lord Balti- 
more's servants having slain three men in keeping the entry of 
the Hudson river which goeth up into Maryland." Jerome 
Hawley was also charged with a declaration "that he had 
been sent to plant this Romanish religion in Maryland," a 
statement he utterly denied. He soon after received an ap- 
pointment to colle6l a tax on tobacco in Virginia, but had 
lately come back with his wife Eleanor, to St. Mary's. He 
died before the end of the year ; he was not wealthy. It ^^'^ 
seems that his only daughter was afterwards in Brabant, 
probably the "Hon. Susan Hawley," who joined the English 
nuns of the Holy Sepulchre in 1641 and was perpetual pri- 
oress at Liege from 1652 until 1706, when she died at the 
age of eighty-four, 

Thomas Copley, Esquire, and Andrew White and John 
Altham, gentlemen, were also summoned to this assembly, 
but they asked, through Robert Clarke to be excused, know- 
ing well how the Puritan faflion, then daily gaining strength 
in England would regard their appearance as legislators. 
John Bryant, freeman and planter, had a seat ; he was one 
of those first transported by Copley ; on the 31st of January 
he was killed by the fall of a tree — and on the settlement of 
his estate, Robert Clarke on behalf of Thomas Copley, en- 
tered a caveat for "50 barrells of corn." Bryant had prob- 
ably "bcmght his time" and had not yet paid all that was 
due. It was also found on the settlement of Jerome Haw- 
ley's property that he owed to Thomas Copley a debt of 
eighty-seven pounds secured by judgment, and other sums, 
for which Mr. Copley took fifty pounds of desperate debts 

(») D. S. P. (2) OUver's His. of Eng. Church. 



54 ^Mc of Father Thomas Copley. 

due the estate. It would thus seem that the term of service 
was not long, nor was it attended with disgrace. 

A proof of the esteem and confidence from those whom 
Fr. Copley had brought out, was furnished by a case which 
came before the Court this year. Thomas Cornwallys had 
for overseer on one of his plantations near St. Mary's City, 
a man named William Lewis who was a zealous Catholic. 
On the last Sunday in June two of the servants who were 
Protestants, Francis Gray and Robert Sedgrave, were reading 
aloud from the writings of an almost forgotten divine of the 
Church of England, things not very agreeable to the ears of 
a man like Lewis ; theologians used vigorous language in 
those days ; there was a heated discussion. Lewis lost his 
temper, threatening to burn the book, and they deeming 
themselves martyrs, drew up a statement of their grievances, 
intending to forward it to Governor Hervey of Virginia as 
the nearest authority of their faith. .Sedgrave who drew up 
this document and seems from it to have been well educated, 
had come out the year before with Father Copley, but does 
not appear to have been bound by the usual terms, as he 
sat as a freeman in the Assembly of the previous winter and 
was now employed by another person. Lewis grew fright- 
ened and reported to Cornwallys that his servants were 
about to petition the Governor of Virginia against him. 
Cornwallys, as justice of the peace, summoned them before 
himself, Governor Calvert, and Secretary Lewger, when the 
whole circumstance was rehearsed. Sedgrave testified that 
Gray wanted the petition, but he retained it until he could 
.speak to Mr. Copley : — on Sunday last he saw Gray at the 
Fort and told him that "Mr. Copley had given him good 
satisfa6lion, had blamed William Lewis for his contumelious 
speech and ill-governed zeal."^^^ This was also the opinion 
of the authorities and Lewis was obliged to pay a fine of 
tobacco. 

Father Philip Fisher, at this time Superior of the Mary- 
land Mission, was probably Thomas Copley's companion at 
St Inigoes, he having been sent from England either in 

P) Fr, Copley may have said that I<ewis was indiscreet, but no more, 



A Founder of Maryland. 55 

1635 or 1636, according to Oliver. Great confusion has re- 
sulted from confounding this priest, who, following the same 
authority, was born in 1595, entered the Society in 161 7, 
and was professed in 1630, with John Fisher, otherwise Mus- 
ket, whose real name seems to have been Percy. 

The first notice of this Father Percy, Fisher, Fairfax, for 
he passed under all of those names, occurs in the memoirs 
of Gerard, who placed him as chaplain with Sir Everard 
Digby. Arrested at the time of the Gunpowder Plot, he was 
confined in "the Tower in Little-Ease, a crypt under a 
crypt," where he has left his protest carved on the wall:^^^ 
"Sacris Vestibus indutus dum Sacra Mysteria servans, 
captus et in hoc angusto carcere inclusus. J. Fisher." He 
was still in prison in 1614, for he was then examined and 
refused the oath; he was in Wisbech Castle in 161 5, from 
which, with several other priests he escaped, as afterwards 
out of Lincoln Castle. He was then banished, but returned 
to England in the suite of Collona, the Spanish ambassador, 
in 1624. In May 1625, according to Domestic State Papers, 
he had a grant of pardon for offenses against the Statutes : 
in March, 1627, there appears "a list of popish books and 
other things taken in the hou.se of William Sharpies, Queen 
St., St. Giles in the Fields, belonging to Mr. Fisher, other- 
wise Musket;" and in June of the same year there is a 
memorandum that "the Countess of Buckingham's Lodge 
called 'the Porch' at the end of the king's garden, lodges 
Fisher." (2) 

Ere long we find him in prison ; in 06lober of the next 
year there is a warrant from Secretary Conway "to search 
the closets and trunks of George Gage in the Clink and of 
one Musket in the Gatehouse," after which there is no men- 



(i) Hepworth Dixon's "Her Majesty's Tower." 
<2) Not long since an able writer advanced the theory that Philip Fisher and 
Thomas Copley were the same person. The reasons he adduces for this opin- 
ion whilst very weighty, still do not exclude all doubt, and until further re- 
search in England, or in Rome, throws light upon the subject, it must be rele- 
gated among the many "vexed questions" of history. Oliver says Philip 
Fisher's real name was Cappicius, which may have been a misspelling of 
Copleus. Thus writes Br. Foley in a recent letter, 



56 Life of Father T/ioitias Copley. 

tion of him until 1632, when it is stated in a note respe6l:irig 
priests "that Father Musket remains in Count Aruridell's 
house." His prote6lor is known to us as Lord Arundell of 
Wardour, having been so created a few years afterwards, 
and was the father of Ann Arundell, the wife of Cecil Lord 
Baltimore. On the 12th of December of the next year Mus- 
ket appeared at Whitehall before the Privy Council, being 
brought by John Gray, one of the vile brood of messengers, 
and "it was ordered, according to his Majesty's pleasure, that 
he should depart the realm forthwith — and give bond with 
securities not to return ; and that he should stand commit- 
ted to the Gatehouse until he had peformed the same. 
Nevertheless, he is to remain in custody until he has satis- 
fied Gray and has defrayed his expenses in the house where 
he lodges." Some years afterwards there is an indignant 
petition from the same messenger to the Council, "that one 
Fisher, alias Percy, who was committed to the Gatehouse 
and sentenced to be banished, has been abroad these three 
years and does more mischief than he did before." Gray prays 
for an order to retake him. Rushworth in his "Collections," 
volume fourth, says that in 1640 he was released prepara- 
tory to banishment, but makes no allusion to America, and 
Challoner in his "Missionary Priests" states that he succeed- 
ed Kellison as Re6lor at Douay in Nov. 1641, and died 
there fortified by the rites of the Church and surrounded by 
his weeping friends ^'^ in 1645, the very year that Ingle's ship, 
the Reformation, appeared in the peaceful creek of St. Tni- 
goes and carried off White and Fisher to England. Oliver 
says that during the last years of his life. Father Musket 
was afflicted with a cancer. Streeter says that he was cele- 
brated for his dialeftic skill and disputed with Lewger be- 
fore his conversion. It is certain that he was called from 
prison to engage in religious controversy with James him- 
self; the good Father must have remembered the ancient 
philosopher who declined to reason with "the master of forty 
legions," though the king was good-natured ; perhaps, he 

<i) We follow the MS. though it departs a little from the views of Brother 
f oley in his "Records." 



A Founder of Maryland. 57 

In his vanity thought that having vanquished an opponent in 
argument it would be an abuse of power to hang him. It must 
have been while residing in the household of Lord Arundell 
of Wardour, that Musket encountered Lewger, then a min- 
ister of the established church, and a college companion of 
Cecil Calvert, who no doubt introduced him to his wife's 
confessor. 

In the fall of 1638 the English Provincial sent another 
Father into Maryland, perhaps to supply the place of Cop- 
ley's companion, the young and devoted Knowles. On the 
30th of Noxember arrived Ferdinand Poulton, bringing with 
him Walter Morley, a lay-brother ; Richard Disney and 
Charles the Welshman. Father Poulton applied for land, 
due by condition of plantation, under his real name, though 
he was known by that of Brooks : and it was supposed that 
his true name was Morgan, until the publication of Foley's 
"Record" set that, as manv other matters, to rights. ^^^ 



Chapter xiii. 

FatJier Copley at Mattapony. 

In 1639,^^^ Thomas Copley and Ferdinand Poulton were 
.stationed at Mattapony, a plantation near and south of the 
junftion of the Patuxent and Chesapeake Bay; this land at 
that time belonged to the Fathers, and here they exchanged 
their goods with the natives, gained their good will and im 
proved themselves in the dialeft of the country, preparatory 
to establishing more distant stations. Here they may have 
been visited during the winter, for the distance from St. 
Mary's is only a few miles, by Governor Calvert, by Thos. 
Cornwallys, or other gentlemen of the colony who had 
come to seek counsel from them as ghostly fathers or to 
advise with the.se mature men, their equals in birth, their 
superiors in education, who had "traveled much, endured 
much and knew councils, climates, governments" — concern- 
ing the temporal affairs of the little settlement. And when 

<i) See note, page 66. <« "Relation." 



58 Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

they were disposed of, some weighty matter conne6led 
with the site of the wind-mill about to be ere6led, or a case 
of conscience difficult enough to a military layman, but 
which the learned divine "unloosed as easy as his garter," 
their conversations would have been as diamonds and pearls 
to the historian could they have been transmitted to him, 
for they must have known many of the aftors in the great 
confli6l then approaching, and had mingled familiarly with 
those who had borne no insignificant part in the Courts and 
camps of Europe. Copley's father may have gazed with 
awe-struck infant eyes at Elizabeth Tudor ; he had bowed 
before the cruel and cowardly Catharine de Medicis, had 
served under the magnificent Prince of Parma, and awaited 
in the Escurial the coming of Parma's dread master, Philip 
of Spain ; whilst in England the loftiest names mingled in 
his domestic matters ; the Queen herself is his cousin, as are 
some of her ministers and many of her vi6lims ; and to the 
cities of refuge in which he spent his youth, came men with 
secrets they dared not confide even to cipher. Perhaps, 
Poulton had heard Fitzherbert speak of Mary Stuart whose 
cause he had supported ; and of his own evil kinsman, Gil- 
bert Gifford, hJ^unprovoked betrayer. They both knew 
Gerard, had seen on his strong wrists the marks of Top- 
cliffe's gyves, and had heard, from his own lips, of the stir- 
ring scenes in which he had taken part. 

To Louvain had come under an assumed name whilst 
Thomas Copley was there, William Ellis, the faithful page 
of Sir Everard Digby, who alone shared that wild ride 
which ended in a traitor's grave for his master ; it were 
something to know what words were spoken as they gal- 
loped side by side. 

Frances Parker, daughter of Lord Mounteagle who receiv- 
ed a fateful letter, and niece to Francis Tresham who is said 
to have written it, was professed at St. Monica's in 1626, and 
may have communicated to Copley's sisters fa6ls throwing 
some light on an enigmatical portion of history, which 
might have been made plain in that rude lodge in the New 
World, where the Fathers sat secure in the love and respe6l 



A Founder of Maryland. 59 

of white and red men, while George Gage was slowly dying 
in the Clink and Henry More wrote from his prison in 
Newgate, begging "to be executed, that he might cease to 
be a subjeft of discord betwixt the King and his parliament." 
At this time Mattapony must have been an advanced set- 
tlement of the colony, the only manor on the Patuxent be- 
>'ond it being that of Fenwick ; for it was not until ten years 
afterwards that Robert Brooke came and took up his great 
estate of De La Brooke on both sides of the river. This 
mission had been given the Fathers by Macaquomen, king 
of the Patuxents, a tribe which fished, hunted and trapped 
beaver on both sides of the broad stream which there ex- 
])ands into an estuary. Ten or fifteen miles further up the 
river on the St. Mary's side, there was a village, perhaps 
only used at the fishing season, still known as Indian Town ; 
here the Fathers preached, taught and, finally, baptized ; for 
they seemed to have had little trouble in converting these 
people who are said to have been neither warlike nor nu- 
merous. Their langu^ige, however, must have been that 
generally spoken by the aborigines of the colony, since the 
Jesuits devoted time and care to its study. The book first 
printed by them in Maryland and still preserved in Rome, 
is said to be in the tongue of the Patuxents,^^^ unspoken now 
by man. Nearly forty years ago two brothers, then about 
to proceed westward, were pointed out to the writer as the 
last of the tribe. In September 1640 died Father John Al- 
tham, whose true name was Gravener ; he had long labored 
on the island of Kent, and was one of the original mission- 
aries. Pushing their way northward the Fathers had reach- 
ed Portupaco, an Indian village, situated on a creek flowing 
into the Potomac ; "proceeding to a distant mission," which 
may have been this, Ferdinand Poulton was killed by the 
accidental discharge of a gun in the canoe in which he 
crossed the river. Thomas Copley, thus deprived of his 
companion, remained at Mattapony ministering among the 
Patuxents and the white settlers, who even then were taking 
the places abandoned by the natives. Father Copley went 
on occasional expeditions towards the Potomac until 1642, 
<») ScharPs Hist, of Maayland, vol. 1, p. 190. 



6o Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

when the first permanent mission was established at Portu- 
paco, where he took up his abode ; Father Roger Rigby, a 
native of Lancashire, born in 1589, and of the Society since 
1608, remained on the Patuxent, Father White, at Piscata- 
way, and the Superior, PhiUp Fisher, at St. Inigoes. 

Chapter xiv. 

St. Thomas' Manor. — Difficulties zvitJi Lord Baltimore. 

"This year Portupaco received the faith with baptism :" 
brief, hke the language of Scripture, come down the words 
of the Relation ; it were well that Superiors should know 
how went the day, but humility forbade that one should be 
commended where all had alike labored. It is evident, 
however, that this success was due to Thomas Copley ; may 
he not have named the Manor near Port Tobacco which he 
then took up "St. Thomas'" in thanksgiving to his patron 
saint. It is unfortunate for modern research that the annual 
letters sent by the Superiors in Maryland were not address- 
ed to the Father General in Rome, where they would have 
been preserved. As Maryland was but a branch of the Eng- 
lish Province, they were sent to the Provincial, always an 
outlaw, often a prisoner, who, after transcribing such transac- 
tions as seemed most important in his own account, de- 
stroyed documents which would have been highly compro- 
mising both to the receiver and the sender. For instance, 
this very year the Vice-provincial, Henry More, then con- 
fined in Newgate and awaiting the trial which soon consigned 
him to death, received a communication from Philip Fisher 
that "twelve heretics had been converted" in the colony, 
each conversion, as the laws then stood, subje6ling the priest 
to death ; though they did not take place in England, still 
the parties were the King's subje6ls. If such communica- 
tions fell into the hands of the authorities the results might 
be disastrous. 

The Provincial was also informed of difficulties which had 
arisen with the Lord Proprietor on account of the bequests 
of Indian converts and jealousy, which seems to have origi- 



A Pounder of Maryland. gt 

hated with Secretary Lewger, of estates held by mortmain 
in the province. On the other hand were papal decrees bind- 
ing on all Catholics, which the Fathers affirmed, and a list 
of propositions was submitted to the Propaganda for dis- 
cussion. There appears to have been danger at one time 
that not only would Mattapony be taken away, but other 
property was threatened ; at least we must conclude so, from 
a transfer made by Thomas Copley this year to Cuthbert 
Fenwick of "all the land due him by conditions of transpor- 
tation, which was laid out ; four hundred acres of town land 
and four thousand of other land."^'^ It was no uncommon 
thing at that time of attainder and pramunire thus to secure 
estates ; the sharer in this transaction was one of whose fi- 
delity there could be no doubt, Cuthbert Fenwick being one 
of the founders of Maryland whose devotion to the Catholic 
Church has never been denied. How long he held the 
property in trust is uncertain, but it was unknown, or had 
been re-transferred before Nov. 1643, when Lord Baltimore 
wrote to his commissioners, Giles Brent and Lewger, Leo- 
nard Calvert having then returned to England, "to rent Mr. 
Copley's house in St. Mary's City for Mr. Gilmett and his 
family who are about to come out, until midsummer, 1645, 
at a reasonable rent, to be paid from my revenues in Mary- 
land, but not to be charged to pay anything here." This 
letter is dated "Bristol." 

Thus Thomas Copley flits before us in the few memorials 
which have come down to us from early days ; in "the rec- 
ords" as one deeply concerned in worldly affairs, bringing 
out servants, taking up land, owning houses, suing and be- 
ing sued in the Courts of law. White and Altham came 
before him, Fisher, Poulton and Rigby were his fellow 
priests, but never once do they appear as his partners in any 
transaflion. In the deeds and wills he emerges in his spiri- 
tual capacity. Hebden asks that "he will pray for his soul," 
and secures property to him and his successors, as does 
Governor Green. It is impossible to say at this day to what 
Father Copley owed his peculiar pre-eminence, whether it 

^') AQoapolis Records. 



65 Life of Father Thomas Coptey. 

was to his superior executive ability, or the high rank of his 
family and the immunity which his Spanish birth and the 
King's prote6lion secured to him should questions arise ; 
surely a gentleman allied to the best blood in England had 
a right to hold lands and goods and to plant in my Lord 
Baltimore's plantation ; and who can prove that he hath ta- 
ken Romish orders or entered into any forbidden association ? 
The latter points were so carefully concealed that no evi- 
dence of his profession being found, he was long thought to 
have been a layman employed to superintend the temporal 
interests of the Society ; he is spoken of in the Relation as 
"Coadjutor Copley," but St. Monica's chronicler, one of his 
sisters perhaps, states distin6tly that he was a professed 
Father. 

In December, 1643, William Copley of Gatton, the father 
of Thomas, was buried in the church of that place, aged 
seventy-nine. For thirty years he had been an exile and 
returned to England a man of forty, too late to throv\' off 
the impressions of other lands and to take on English habits. 
He seems never to have been happy ; and harassed in va- 
rious ways, vainly sought relief from law. His last appeal 
is a petition to the King presented 1638. In this he .sets 
forth that Anne, the widow of his son William, had at her 
death left Sir Richard Weston of Sutton Court, Surrey, 
guardian of her two daughters, Mary and Anne. Mary was 
already the wife of John, Sir Richard's eldest son, and Anne 
had just been contrafted to a younger brother, though Sir 
Richard had promised faithfully she should never match 
with any younger son. "This engagement" the petitioner 
considers "an outrage which is like to result in the utter 
ruin of his family," and prays that the young couple may be 
sequestered and kept apart until the cause is decided, 
which was granted. 

This young lady whose forgotten romance flickers dimly 
amidst prosaic state papers, ultimately became the wife of 
Nathanael Munshull and died childless. William Copley 
was the last male of that name who owned Gatton, which 
was then inherited by his oldest grand-daughter. His 



A Fojinder of Maryland. 6j 

widow, Margaret, lived at Leigh Place in which she had a 
life estate. Her first son, John, seems to have been in some 
way deficient; his death in 1662 is the only record of him 
in the Gatton register ; the second son, Roger, soon after 
his father's death, perhaps through the intervention of his 
brother in Maryland, was placed at St. Omer's whence he 
went four years afterwards to study philosophy at Louvain. 
Whilst there, he, with Lord Carrington boarded at the 
Gatehouse of St. Monica's ; they both obtained leave to 
help the sisters in the organ house, "Roger Copley being so 
skilled in music that he composed songs to the organ." <^^ 

In 1645, Ingle, a Puritanical buccaneer, plundered St. 
Mary's City and the Mission of St. Inigoes, and carried Frs. 
White and Fisher to England where they were thrown into '^ 

prison. They were tried two years afterwards on the usual 
charges, as Jesuits who had come into England to seduce 
the subjefts of the commonwealth, but it being proved that /.^ 

they did not come, but were brought very much against 
their will, they were banished. In 1648 Father White was 
in Flanders and direftor of Margaret Mostyn who founded 
the Carmelite Convent at Lierre ; he died in London in 
1656 at a great age "in the house of a nobleman," probably 
that of Lord Baltimore. It is stated that Ingle also attacked 
Copley's house at Port Tobacco ; this, however, seems 
doubtful ; at any rate he and Rigby, who was his companion 
at that station, made their escape, probably across the river 
to the loyal province of Virginia, whence they might return 
whenever it was safe to minister to the spiritual needs of 
their own people, now, save for their assistance, entirely de- 
prived of ghostly comfort. Gravener and Poulton and 
Knowles were dead. White and Fisher absent, and save 
these two there is not the slightest mention of the presence 
of any Jesuit priest in Maryland until three years afterwards. 

In Virginia in 1646 died Roger Rigby, and towards the 
close of the year, Governor Leonard Calvert came to Mary- 
land and re-established the authority of the Lord Proprietor, 
and with it peace and prosperity. Copley, doubtless, ra- 
ti) St. Monica's Chronicle, 



d4 Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

turned with him and sought to bind together again the 
sheaves of the scattered harvest, in the sowing of which he 
had seen so many of his Order fall. He had soon to lament 
the death of a secular friend; in June, 1647, he, as the only 
priest in the colony, and the intimate friend of Margaret 
Brent, must have stood by Gov. Calvert's bed-side and ad- 
ministered to him the final rites ; it was, doubtless, with that 
purpose that the by-standers were turned away from the 
room a little before his death, even professed Catholics be- 
ing obliged to observe secrecy in the pra6lice of observances 
for which priests and assistants might be called in question. 
Every historian of Leonard Calvert has stated that he was 
not married ; there is, however, a tradition in the Brooke 
family, now one of the most extensive in the State, that he 
was, his only daughter, Mary, having been the wife of Baker 
Brooke. It is certain Cecil Lord Baltimore, in appointing 
him surveyor general of the proxince, designates him "our 
trust}' and well-beloved nephew." ^^^ Margaret Brent is 
mentioned by some writers as Leonard Calvert's "relative;" 
she certainly was his executrix; may she not have been his 
sister-in-law ? Leonard Calvert appointed, for his successor, 
Thomas Green, one of the Council, and a Catholic, who 
seems from a subsequent transaftion to have been a friend 
of Father Copley and familiar with his career since his en- 
trance in the province. 

Chapter xv. 

The Acl of Toleration. 

The civil war in England had now almost ended, and the 
condition of affairs there strongly affefted those in Maryland ; 
though Charles I, had found his most faithful adherents 
among the Catholics, a high authority, Hallam., stating "that 
out of five hundred gentlemen who fell on his side one third 
were of that faith," there were some who felt that the Stu- 
arts deserved nothing at their hands, and remained neutral 
or supported the parliamentary party. And this sentiment 
wjtelty'B Land Owner's Assistant. 



A Founder of Maryland, 65 

was iqqreased when the deep duplicity of Charles to Lord 
Herbert, son of the brave old Marquis of Worcester, in re- 
gard to affairs in Ireland became known. After the King's 
execution, when anarchy seemed imminent, many of the 
Catholics were willing to exchange their support of Crom- 
well for a limited toleration. Sir Kenelm Digby conspicu- 
ous among them for his rare endowments of body and mind, 
who had lost a son and a brother in the royal army, was 
deputed by them to treat with the Lord Protestor. To this 
very sensible party Lord Baltimore probably belonged.; 
from his wife's connexion with the Somersets, her sister 
having married Lord Herbert's brother, he must have long 
ago come to a true understanding of the charafter of Charles, 
for whose cause he appears not to have been fanatical ; the 
old crusader, Arundell of Wardour, was now dead, and his 
son, as staunchly loyal, had fallen at Lansdowne ; to both of 
these barons Baltimore owed debts contra(5led to advance 
the Maryland enterprise, but he was now freed from their 
influence, a new order of things was begun, and to pave the 
way for toleration at home he appointed as Governor of 
Maryland, William Stone, who was a member of the Estab- 
lished Church, but there being as yet no Puritan of note in 
the province, what better could be done ? He, doubtless, 
a6ling under advice of the Lord Proprietor called an Assem- 
bly which passed on the 2d of April, 1649- — "the A61: for 
Toleration in Religion," the first legislative recognition of 
an idea which though it had dawned on some advanced 
minds long before, as best suited to the new condition of 
affairs, was not thoroughl)' accepted until a hundred and 
twenty-five years afterwards when it was promulgated in the 
great Declaration. Of the circumstances attending the 
framing of the remarkable document of toleration little is 
known. Kennedy, well informed in the history of his native 
State, says "the first a6l for toleration was penned by a 
Jesuit," and Davis has proved that it was passed by an As- 
sembly, the majority of whose members were Catholics. 
Among imperfedlly educated men, many of whom left Eng- 
5 



66 Life of Father Thomas Copley, 

land very young, engaged in planting, hunting and building 
up a new country, there could have been few capable of 
drafting it. The thorough training of the Fathers, and the 
enterprise which must have furnished them a library as well 
as supplied them with a printing-press, made them the lit- 
erary superiors of the other colonists, who, doubtless, often 
employed them in the capacity of clerks, as all clergymen 
were still thus designated in England, to draw up wills and 
other instruments, and recourse may have been had to 
them in the present case. Father Philip Fisher had obtained 
leave to return to Maryland, and had arrrived a few days 
before the first of March, leaving his companion, Lawrence 
Starkie, in Virginia ; Francis Derbyshire did not reach 
Maryland until after the adjournment of the Assembly. The 
honor, therefore, lies between Copley and Fisher, though it 
does not seem likely that one who had just arrived after a 
long journey, and who was ignorant of the questions which 
had sprung up in his absence would have been called upon. 
Copley was a man of high education and enlightened views, 
fully capable of expressing in a statesmanlike manner the 
principles entertained by his grandfather more than sixty 
years before. Indeed the A61 seems but an embodiment of 
the opinions expressed by Sir Thomas Copley in his letters 
/> to Burleigh and Walsingham that "we, who believe in 
one God in three persons which is the principal foundation, 
should not persecute each other for matters of less impor- 
tance wherein we may differ." The first clause in the Aft 
of Toleration is a paraphrase of this expression, "they who 
shall deny our Lord Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, or 
shall deny the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son. or Holy Ghost, 
or the Godhead of any of the said three persons of the Trin- 
ity, or the unity of the Godhead shall be put to death." 
With this exception, it grants perfeft liberty and equality to 
all Christian se£ls, even making the use of "papist, heretic, 
separationist, Brownist, etc.," as tending to create discus- 
sion, punishable by fine. 

No people in the world had more reason to desire tolera- 
tion than the English Catholics; ground, for more than 



A Founder of Maryland. 6y 

ninety years, between the upper and nether millstones of 
relentless persecution, the convi6lion^^^ expressed by Father 
Parsons, "that neither breathing, nor the use of common 
ayre is more due to us all, than ought to be the liberty of 
conscience to Christian men, whereby each liveth to God 
and to himself had come to many others, and at last found 
utterance in this aft of Legislature, though its principles 
had been praftised from the first foundation of the colony, 
as is proved by the case of Cornwallys' servants in 1638. 

On the 1 6th of August, 1650, Thomas Copley, Esq., made 
a demand for twenty thousand acres of land, ex-Governor 
Green certifying that he had transported at least sixty men \/ 

into the province. This demand does not seem to have 
been complied with, and was probably made in consequence 
of the dispute about Mattapony, "King Macaquomen's gift," 
being re-opened. It may have been a part of some legal 
proceedings, or a proof of possession. For the same year 
there occurs "from William Lewis, constable," the person 
whom Copley had accused of "ill-governed zeal" twelve years 
before, "a return of articles seized for rent at St. Inigoes : 
"i copper kettle of Mr. Copley's, i brass ladle, 4 brass 
ladles, 5 pewter plates, i pr. of great iron andirons, 5 doz. of 
thin glass tumblers in a box, six pi6lures, i leather chair, a 
chest of drawers. Left in the house 3 tables, all the bed- 
steads in the house belonging to Mr. Copley." The records 
show that Thomas Copley was one of the most prosperous 
men in the community ; it could not have been for lack of 
means that he allowed the "disjefta membra" of the house- 
hold goods of the Mission left from Ingle's raid, to be seized 
by the constable, but because he denied the justice of the 
debt. That he was at that time on good terms with the 
Protestant Governor Stone appears from the fa6l that not 
long before, Margaret Brent writing from Kent to that gen- 
tleman, acknowledges a letter received from him, "conveyed 
by Mr. Copley," whence it would appear that Father Copley 
now served that Mission, 



W Judgement of a Catholic Englishman. 



S^ Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

Chapter xvi. 

Last Days. 

Father Copley was defendant in a lawsuit tried at St. 
Mary's City, January 15th, 1651.^^^ It appears that Richard 
Blount of Virginia had a servant, Nicholas White, who ran 
away and took refuge at St. Inigoes, and his master em- 
ployed Henry De Courcy as his attorney to reclaim the fu- 
gitive and seek damages, for his detention, from Mr. Copley, 
as he had sent for him the preceding June, when he was 
not delivered up. Governor Stone testified that Mr. Copley 
had promised him that the servant should not be taken, un- 
til Dr. Taylor could be brought forward to prove that he 
had made an agreement with Blount for fifteen hundred 
pounds of tobacco. At the request of Mr. Copley "Ralph 
Gfouch, Esq., testified that the servant was at the house 
when the chimney was on fire, which was the Grange house 
belonging to Mr. Copley, and further saith not." Whereupon 
Mr. Copley demanded a jury which was granted. They 
found that the servant was injuriously detained, and should 
be delivered up with one thousand pounds of tobacco in 
cask : harboring fugitive "redemptionists" was a question 
affe6ling a jury of planters in that most "sensitive part of the 
human anatomy, the pocket," and not to be overlooked 
either in priest or presiding officer. "Ralph Crouch,^^^ Es- 
quire," was a member of the Society, of the date of whose ar- 
fivial in the province and the length of whose stay nothing- 
is known; he was alive in London in 1662. 

Thomas Copley is then lost sight of for nearly two years ; 
on the 4th of November, 1652, he binds himself to pay the 
debts of Paul Simpson, and Simpson makes over his prop- 
erty to Copley, Ralph Crouch signing as witness, 

Tliis is the last notice to be found of Father Copley in the 

<^> Records at Annapolis, Liber 1. 
<^) He was born in Oxfordshire and went to Maryland, where lie rendered 
great service to the Missionaries. He died at Li6ge io X679, aged 59, a Tem- 
poral Coadjutor. 



A Founder of Maryland. 69 

fragmentary papers that still exist at Annapolis ; he is said 
to have died in 1652; the place of his burial is unknown. 
It was probably St. Inigoes, the oldest of the Missions. No 
stately monument befitting- his high degree arose over him, 
no carved escutcheon bearing the black lion of Hoo, the sa- 
ble and argent of Welles, or the golden welks of Shelley 
blazoned his descent from the fierce barons who fell at St. 
Alban's and Q^owton Field, — only the black cross ^^^ which 
marks the grave of the humblest Christian, and which, 
strange!)' enough, was the device of his own family, for 
a while showed his resting-place; it mouldered away; in 
spring the wild violets spread axure over him, and the au- 
tumn shed leax'cs of red and gold ; the mocking-bird built 
in the boughs over his head and the partridge hid her 
young" in the grass at his feet ; thus he lies forgotten by 
men, but living, let us hope, in a better life, and living in his 
works, which yet remain to us. When the Society of Jesus 
was suppressed in 1773, Maryland reverencing her founders 
re.spe6led their possessions, so that on the restoration of 
the Order a few aged priests lingering within the walls of St. 
Inigoes and St. Thomas' Manor^^^ were left to murmur "nunc 
dimittis," and to transmit those estates, the sole remnant of 
the great establishments which once arose in every quarter 
of the globe, to their present possessors. 
. Both Gatton and Leigh Grange of the Copley estates 
were sequestered during the Commonwealth as the prop- 



yl) The arms of Copley were Argent, a cross, liioline, sable. Pr. Copley's 
]>e(ligreo was a distin^'ushcd one, running back to Thomas Hoo, Lord Hoo 
and Hastings, K. C)., who \\a.s kilh'd at St. Alban's in 1455, to Lord Welles, 
kilh'd at /.owton, 14(jl, to 8ir William Shelloy, to Sir Roger Copley, citizen 
and mercer of London. The Copleys were related to Lord Bacon, to Cecil, 
to the Southwells, etc. What remains of the old estates has descended to 
Henry Francis Salvin, Ksquire, a (^atholic, of Sutton Court near Guilford, 
Surrey, Knu'land. 

(2) 'I'he parish chinvh of tlic Manor of the Maze, a l.ai'ge estate in Southwark 
very near the Thames, and possessed by the (,'opleys from about the middle 
of the fifteeutli century, was named "St. Thomas' ;" perliaps, Father Copley 
transferred the old name to the new Mission and ^fanor of St. Thomas which 
he founded in Maryland. — A new church, under tlie invocation of St. Edward 
was built in 187G at Sutton Park, which is now, as we said before, the prop- 
erty of Mr. Salvin. 



70 Life of Father Thomas Copley. 

erty of Catholic recusants and were sold by the family in 
1655. Roger Copley had married, and seems, for a time, to 
have lingered near the old place, the burial of four of his 
children being recorded in the register of Gatton between 
1658 and 1672 ; after this date the name no longer appears. 
He is supposed to have been the father of Wm. Copley, S. J., 
who was born in 1668 and took his last vows in 1698, labored 
in Warwickshire and died in 1727. There seem to have 
been another priest and three nuns, two Benedi6lines and a 
Poor Clare, at Gravelines, who, perhaps, belonged to this 
family. In 17 14 Henrietta Copley, a Catholic widow, was 
possessed of property valued at fifty pounds near St. Olive's, 
Southwark, and in 1721 Henry Copley, the son of Don John 
Copley and Mary Conquest, born at St. Germain's in 1705, 
entered the English College, Rome : "he had been educated 
at St. Omer's and was ordained in 1728." 

Twenty-five years ago there existed in St. Mary's County, 
Maryland, a class of poor whites, who, lived mostly by fish- 
ing ; among them were Copleys and Gattons, both races 
remarkable for handsome faces and aristocratic bearing ; it 
may be they were the descendants of the ancient lords of 
the Manor of Gatton in Surrey. 

Errata. 

Page 59, line 2, for More read Morse. Page 60, line 12 
from bottom, read Henry More, who had been in prison and 
died afterwards at Watten, 



NOTES TO PAGE 46. 



The preceding pages show the heroism of the Copleys. Grandfather, father, 
sons, daughters, and those allied to the house by the ties of blood or marriage, 
are revealed to us as staunch in the faith and, if need be, sacrificing fortune 
and life for conscience' sake. And this was their history for generations. 
Still there were some degenerate sons; Anthony and John Copley, uncles of 
Father Thomas, come before us as the unworthj' offspring of heroic lines. We 
give what we have been able to gather concerning their history as tending to 
throw some light upon tlie difficulties the Catholics had to encounter in cling- 
ing to the r< ligion which they held so dear, and which was rendered im- 
measurably sacred by the blood of the martyrs around them. 

We will now return to the black sheep Anthony, who, before 1592, had 
gone back to England ; he seems to have been one of those men who conceal 
under a frank exterior, great duplicity. Richard Topcliffe, the notorious in- 
former, on the arrest of Southwell in 1593 wrote to the Queen : "Young An- 
thony Copley, the most desperate youth that liveth, hath most familiarity 
with Soutliwell. Copley did shoot at a gentleman last summer and did kill 
an ox with a musket, and in Horsham chui'ch threw his dagger at the parish 
clerk and stuck it in a seat in the church ; there liveth not the like I think 
in England for sudden attempts ; nor is there one upon whom I liave good 
grounds to have more watcliful eyes for liis sister Gage's and his brother-in- 
law Gage's sake, of whose pardon he boa.steth he is assured." After this let- 
ter Topclifte, having license of the Queen, took Southwell to his own house 
and tortured liin). From this it appears that Anthony Copley's previous per- 
fidy was unknown to this contemporary scoundrel ; let us hope he had not 
exchanged the life of liis sister for that of liis cousin and benefactor. 

From Donee's Illustrations of Shakspeare it would seem that Anthony Cop- 
ley hiid literary a.spirations. In 1595 he published "Witts, Fittes, and Fan- 
cies," consisting of sayings, jests and anecdotes in part translated from a 
Spanish work entitled "La Floretta Spagnola," at the end of which was 
)>rinted a poem by him called "Love's Owle, in a dialogue wise betweene 
Love and an Olde Man," of which he thus speaks in his dedication : "As for 
ray Love's Owle I am content that Momus turne it to a tennis ball if he can, 
and bandy it quite away ; namely I desire M. Daniel, M. Spencer and other 
Prime Poets of our time to pardon it with as easy a frowne as they please, for 
that I give them to understand that an University muse never penned it, 
though Immbly devoted thereto." This book was reprinted in 1614 with- 
out his name. In 1.59fi he published "A Fig for Fortune." From Collier's 
account he seems to have been as bad a poet as he was a man. He married, 
and seems to have lived at Raughley, a moated mansion, in Surrey, which 
had descended to his family from the Hoos, and not far distant from Horsham 
church, mentioned by Topcliffe, in which is still a beautiful tomb to the last 
Lord Hoo and Hastings killed in the wars of the Roses. 

(70 



y^ Life of Fathej- Thoiims Copley. 

In the latter part of Elizabeth's reign the most unfortunate dissensions had 
arisen among the Catholics. An archpriest, Pr. George Blackwell, having 
been appointed by the Pope, a number of priests who were opposed to such an 
office, sought his dismissal, and appealing ti> Home for that purpose, they 
were called "Appellants." 'Miero was also great ill-feeling between the Semi- 
narians and the Regulars, which is sHid to liavc been encouraged at Wisbech, 
a prison where many of both kinds weri' confined, by Elizabeth who remem- 
bered, perhaps, that "a house divided against itself shall not stand." The 
adversaries of the Jesuits accusing the Order of being "iuspanolized," pointed 
to Robert Parson's book oii tlie Succession, in which he avowed tlie doctrine, 
that kings derived their riglit from the; will of the governed. Both Regulars 
and Seminarians accused Cach other of furnishing information to the gov- 
ernment. 

One of tlie most active of the appellant priests was Watson, iiepiiew of the 
Bishop of Lincoln, the last survivor of that hierarchy which liad come down 
from St. Austin. Watson was a s-trong supporter of tlic claims of James t(t 
the crown ; had visited him before Elizabeth's deatli and received from him 
strong assurances of indulgence for the Oathol ics should he become King of Eng- 
land. In the quari'el with the Jesuits Watson publislied a book called "Quod 
libet" which happily no man now living lias ever read ; his friend and sup- 
porter, Anthony Copley, rushed into print, with what we would term a pamph- 
Ifet, the name of which we have been unable to di.scover; intimate with these 
two was a secular prie.st namedClarke, who with them cherished high hopes 
of a happy future under James. Their disappointment was very great when 
they discovei'cd what his real intentions were, <)r rather what were the designs 
of Cecil who had obtained entire intlueiice over iiini. ^V''atson wlio had a 
true appreciation of his character, gained, perhaps, while in Scotland, — "if T 
hae Jocko by the collar I can gar him bite you" — thought that if the Catiio- 
lics would seize him they could control him, and it would not be treason, be- 
(^ause he had not yet been crowned I lie, with his two intimate ft-iends al- 
ready mentioned, with Sir Griffith Markliam and a few other Catliolics, in 
the summer of 161.3 formed a little i)lot of tiieir own inside of a larger Prot- 
estant one, in which were engaged Sir Walter Raleigh, Lord Cobham, Lord 
Grey of Wilton, a strong Puritan, and others; at least Sir Edward (\)ke so 
described it; and Ik; should have ktiown, for lie wa.s learned in plot.'^. "The 
Main," or Protestant conspirators; \v6re' trt eariy off the king, "the Bye," or 
Cathdlics, were t(V take him from th'efft; if the two knew each others'' desijyij 
and if so, liow they reconciled their C(')nflicting views, I caniiot iell. 
the fact that anything ttf tlie kind was contemplated is known only to the iill- 
seeing eye. Such a charge, however; served Cecil's turn. The accn«ed gen- 
tlemen were arrested, examined — andO Anthony Copley, after his usual fash- 
ion, at once told all and jirobably a great deal more than he knew : to us it 
seems incredible that men should have incurred the fearful penalties of trea- 
son in the reckless way he describes. To know the character of this man, in 
which the swash-buckler and the pedant seem to have met in equal propor- 
tions, it is only necessary to read liis (H)ufession given in his own handwriting 
to the Lords of the Privy Council on the 14th of July. In it he tells how lii^ 
rode to London and visited Watson in his chanibers at Westmiuster, who 
offered him an oath which he took without question ; on which Watson in- 
formed him that a supplication was offerki to thfe King, and that it was not 
' (1) Confession in appendix to Dodd's Hist, of the Church. 



A Founder of Maryland. 73 

granted ; "the more mettled Rpirits had a recourse which he declined to ex- 
plain," as "the course was rough and not thoroughly tried," deferring fuller 
information until his next visit. Copley was, however, perfectly satisfied, 
"giving him his hand and Catholic promise to be seen as far as any man," 
and promising to bring up as many resolute men as he could, he departed to 
the country. On the 21st of June he again visited Watson who said he ex- 
pected "many tall men on the 23d" and desired to know how many Copley 
had brought, who said "not one, for I know never a Catholic near me for sev- 
eral miles who is not .Tesuited." They spent the evening in talking of cut- 
ting oflF heads, to which Copley says he was opposed, and of getting the great 
seal, of which the bloody-minded Watson was to be keeper in the event of 
their success. 

The next morning Copley called on his sister, Mrs. Gage, taking two of his 
books and a letter which he had written to the arch-priest "to reconcile him- 
self to the main body of Catholics," which documents seem to have been sent 
through her — it was not the least of Blackwell's sufferings if he read them ! 
Going back to Watson's chamber, Copley found Sir Griffitli Markham there 
and they discussed the capture of James "either by day or night" at Green- 
wich, Copley offering "to be one of thirty men to take him from five hun- 
dred." They also considered how he should be converted when once in 
their hands, "wliether by disputation, exorcism of those possessed of the devil, 
or trial by battle." In case the latter were decided on, Watson asked, "Who 
amongst us will be the gallant Maehabee to take that trial on himself:" to 
which Copley replied: "Doubt ye not, sir, enough will be found, or, if all 
failed, rather than so fair a ball should fall to the ground, I myself would be 
the man ; provided if it might be without scandal to the (^liurch upon the 
canon of the Council of Trent to the contrary of all duellums, if I choose the 
weapon, not doubting but that my wife, who by the sacrament of matrimony 
is individually interested in my person, would, she being a Catholic and the 
cause so much God's, quit at my request, such her interest, for the times ; and 
not doubting to find among the host of heaven that blessed queen, his Majes- 
ty's mother, at my elbow at that Iiour." 

The next day was Corpus Christi, and tliese men with their lives at stake 
concluded to do nothing until it was over, or as Copley expressed it, they de- 
termined "to feriate" in its honor ; so they parted, he going to Mrs. Gage's 
where he discoursed a long time about the discontents of the Catholics, boast- 
ing of what his party would do to remedy these evils, wishing that the other 
side, as having more men and greater purse, would join them. He blamed 
Mrs. Gage for her remissness in the common cause, which he attributed to the 
influence of the Jesuits, "of which," said he, "she took no notice." It may 
be that Margaret Gage's thoughts were witli one of that Order whom her 
brother seemed to have forgotten, one who had been the companion of their 
childhood ; tliat she saw the gaping crowd, the gibbet tree, the loved face fit- 
ted by .suffering borne here to wear the martyrs crown hereafter, then the 
bitter agony, the kindred blood flowing and tbe noble heart quivering in the 
hangman's hands. Knowing lier brother as she must, and probably deeply 
mistrusting him, her silence was golden, but it must liave tried her soul. 
That evening the conspirators heard that warrants were out for them ; on the 
next the expected "tall men" made their appearance, filling the hall and 
gathering about the door of Watson's appartments, but only a handful ; 
Clarke came in, worn with riding, hopeless and blaming the Jesuits. Then 

5* 



74 Tjfe of Father Thomas Copley. 

Watson flinched and told the gentlemen tliey had as well break off and go 
home. 

Anthony Copley, knowinj^ that liis rotul was barred, concealed himself un- 
til Saturday night, when he crept to his sister's, but she, with tears streaminsr 
down lier cheeks, told him her husbantl liad been arrested, her lumse was no 
place for him, and shut the door in his face. Tie then jrave himself up. On 
lus testimony principally, Clarke and Watson were hung; he and Markbani 
received the same sentence, afterwards comnmted to banishment, most likely 
witJi the understanding "they should divulge some worthy matter." This 
was an old trade of Anthony Cophty, and ^larkham became an intelligencer 
for Cecil at the Court of the Duke of Xureml)erg wlio took pity on him in 
liis exile 

The last record foun<l of .\iitliuiiy Copley is KRKJ wlu-ii lie dined at the Eng- 
lish hospital in Rome ; he had a companion who entered tlie name of "Rob- 
ert Southwell of Norfolk." Anthony had the effrontery to remain here with 
the Jesuits from January until April. Gage of Haling was also foun<l guilty, 
perhaps only of listening to the nonsense of his brother-in-law without re- 
vealing it, and was again condemned to death, but subsequently pardoned. 
Treason was, Ivowever, an expensive luxury, and though pardons were pur- 
chasable, the courtiers wlio obtained them required large "gratifications." 
We find that Lady Copley s<dd her life estate in Mersham Park in 1603, the 
year her son and son-in-law were condemned to death, and that William Cop- 
ley aliened the same manor at tiiat time, the price going to some Scottish 
favorite of the King, who had, perhaps, used his influence in obtaining par- 
don for Anthony and others. 

The history of John Copley, another uncle of Father Tlionuis, is also a dis- 
graceful one by the side of the glorious record of the family. In my reading 
1 have come across the following fact* : Lady Copley iiad been able to obtain 
the discharge of her chaplain, Nieliolas Smith, and sent her youngest son 
.John, under his care, to tlie continent, witli whom lie went from one .Jesuit 
school to another, until, attempting witli some other students to reach Spain 
by sea, he was captured and brought to England, but set at liberty on giving 
bail ; either he or his brother Anthony was probably the "Mr. Copley, the 
lOarl of Cumberland's servant," who in 1504 "corresponded with Donna Mag- 
dalena Copley." In T59it he made tlie following entry at tlie Englisli C<dlege 
in Rome :(ii "I was born at Louvain and I am twenty -two years old ; nine dayk 
after my birth I was sent to England where I wa.s nursed and brought up un- 
til my ninth year. I then went to Liege on my mother's leaving England and 
remained there a year with her. On her then returning to England I wa.s 
sent to Douay where Father Nicholas Smith took charge of me, my mother 
having committed me to his care. When F'ather Smith became a .Jesuit, he 
sent me to Valencia where, after spending a half year in grammar, he again 
called me to Douay. I was placed in the English College and studied syntax 
for a year and then, when the College of St. Omer's was erected, in 1593, Fr. 
Smith was made minister and summoned me thither, where I made my po- 
etry and commenced rhetoric. I was then sent by superiors with Fr. Bald- 
win and other students to Spain by way of Cadiz, viz : with William Worth- 
ington, John Iverson, Thomas Garnett, James Thompson, and Henry Mont- 
pesson. All of us were captured at sea by the English fleet and taken to 
England. I alone was separated from the rest and sent to the Bishop of Lon- 

(1) Foley's Records of the Eng. Provmce--Serles 1st, 



A Founder of Maryland. 75 

don, but was released on some friend jxoinc: bail that T would not leave the 
kingdom. 

"I was my own luastcr duriiii,' this tin>c and spent it in worldly pleasure, 
huiitini?, society and such like vanities. My father was Baron de Hoo and 
J.ord Thomas de Gatton ; my mother was of the family of Lutterel. I have 
two brothers and four sisters; the tliird <if whom married Mr. John Gage, 
and, with Iter husband, was eolhdeinMed to deatli after an imprisonment of 
two years on account of a certain ]M-icst wlm sunietimes said Mass in their 
liouse and was afterwards a martyr. 

"They were both carried in a cart with their lumds bound, but slie received 
\\ letter on the scaffold resjiiting theui. Neither slie nor lier husband was 
pardoned or restored by the Queen, and Baron Charles Howard of Effingham 
took ]>ossession of .Tolin Gage's estate which he this day possesses by the 
Queen's gift. 

"I Iiave a Catholic uncle, Mr. Gage of Firle in Sussex. ^Ir. Geo. Cottam, Mr. 
<le Lides (de Sevyss), Mr. de Price, ^Fr. Skinner, ^fr. Cryps, a part of the 
family of Southwell profess the Catholic faith. Father Hobert Southwell, 
martyr, was a relative on part of my father's sister. My Protestant relations 
iiu my father's side are Lanes, Sidneys, Howards and Hungerfords ; on my 
mother's, Lutterels, Windsors, Suiters, Warwicks, ( 'liffords, Jlallets and Stuck- 
ley.s. When a boy with Mr. Southwell, my uncle, 1 went sometimes to the 
Protestant churcli, but I was not then responsible. I was brought up from 
the age of seven in the Catholic faith." 1I(! then expresses a desire to become 
a priest and there is strong reason to believe he became one. Foley says that 
though tjie Pilgrim book says he was admitted to the scholar's habit there is 
no record in the Diary ; however, in a list of })riests confined in Newgate in 
KiOC, after the Gunpowder Plot, is th<' name of John Copley with that of An- 
ilrew White and Jolin Altliam, afterwards fellow jiriests of his nephew in 
Alaryland. In 1612 he is found as a Protestant clergyman and rector of Bleth- 
ersden in Kent presented l>y Abbot, tlie Archbishop of Canterbury; which 
position he resigned to become rector of PucKley in the same county, where 
he seems to have been always in trouble wifli the Lord of the Manor, Sir Ed- 
war<l Dering, who as late as 1614 speaks of his "currishness" and "face," as 
may be seen in the Memoir of this Lord by the Camden Publication Society. 

There is no doubt of the identity of the pupil of the Jesuits with the cler- 
gyman of the Established Church ; the visitation of Surrey by Berry, taken in 
1623, records him as "Jolin, son of Sir Tiu)mas ( 'opley of Gatton, of Puotley, 
Kent, aged 40, and married to — !Mooue, whilst his position as rector of that 
place is to be found in Halsted's county histoiy and in the Archives of Can- 
terbury. There seemed, at one time, no prospect of discovering the circum- 
stances Avhich induced John Copley to take a step at once at variance with 
his early teachings and the traditions of liis family. Discontent shared with 
his brother Anthony, or (-onsideration of the sti'ong argument furnished by 
years of imprisonment endured for liis priesthood in Newgate, and the com- 
fort of a Kent living for conformity, might Iiave had weight with him, as it 
had with other unlieroic souls; however, a passage in a letter from Sir Dud- 
ley Carlton to Sir Thomas Ivluuinds, London, Jan. 20th, 1611, explains his 
conduct: "One Copley, a priest ami domestical chaplain to the Lord Mon- 
tague, falling in love witii an ancient Catholic maid there, that attended the 
children, they have both left their profession and fallen to marriage." Neill 
quite strangely coqfounds this apostate with Fr. Thomas Copley of Maryland, 







A? 



